Chapter Summary

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In this chapter, you saw how you can use XML in the client browser in the form of data islands and external downloadable files. You explored using the client-side DOM to manipulate XML data and transform XML using XSLT stylesheets, and used the server-side DOM to transform XSLT documents. A brief discussion on XPath also served as an introduction later chapters in this book. XPath and XSLT are rapidly becoming the building blocks of XML and are fostering XML's wide acceptance. XPath is the SQL of XML: It provides a mechanism to locate a set of nodes in an XML document. XSLT builds on XPath by providing a mechanism to transform XML documents into another form.

You also looked at extending the XSLT processor by using JavaScript functions and by using compiled code. You then looked at some of the basics of WML and saw how the same XML file used to generate HTML pages could be combined with XSLT to generate WML.

The remaining chapters build on these concepts. Chapter 5 focuses on the MSXML parser and discusses how it is still an integral part of XML development efforts. Chapter 6 discusses the XML implementation in the .NET Framework and discusses in detail how XSLT plays a significant role within the .NET Framework. Chapter 8 looks at how ADO uses XML under the seams, and shows how a set of relational tables can be queried using XPath or transformed using XSLT. Chapter 9 shows how SQL Server provides XPath and XSLT capabilities and how the .NET Framework can be used to further its capabilities.

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