Using XML, XSLT, and interMedia with Java, PL/SQL and XSQL Pages
ISBN: 1565926919
Pages: 790
Publisher: O’Reilly
Topic: Oracle XML
Rating: 
– (2 out of 5)
Oracle XML Applications has been written for Java and PL/SQL developers in mind, this is so that developers can learn to use the power of XML and Oracle.
This review of Oracle XML Applications covers the first edition of the book, which was written in the year 2000. This may make you think that the book is out of date and that a lot has happened to the Oracle database since then, well that is true. Some areas of this book are outdated such as the JDeveloper sections which are written based on version 3.1, which actually accompanies the book on a CD. The rest of Oracle XML Applications information is actually still current. This includes the use of XPath, XSLT and using PL/SQL to access XML within the Oracle database.
Oracle XML Applications begins with some introductory chapters, such as What is XML? How can I use XML? The following chapters include processing XML with PL/SQL and JDeveloper, transforming XML with XSLT and publishing data with XSQL pages. There are then several chapters on datagrams, (producing XML data out of the database) such as how to create and store them using PL/SQL and Java.
There are two chapters with some good real world examples, such as accessing stock quotes using JDeveloper and XSL, an XSLT powered web store and how to create a personalised news portal using Java and XSQL.
Oracle XML Applications is a reasonable book on how to create XML, load XML, query XML and parse XML but does seem very dated even though a lot of the topics are still current. Perhaps a newly updated version of this book could really help with examples from the latest version of JDeveloper and examples using XML using XML DB.