XSLT For Dummies

Everyone seems to be talking about Extensible Markup Language (XML) these days. You know how mothers are-I can't even visit my relatives over the holidays without my mom broaching the topic of XML at Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, XML has become quite a buzzword, but Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT) is the power that takes all this XML and turns it into something useful and flexible. XSLT is a language used to transform XML documents into something new. It can take one XML document and output that document's information into a completely different structure or turn XML into an HTML document for viewing on the Web. XSLT isn't a general-purpose programming language, such as Java or Visual Basic; its focus is solely on transforming XML. Before I get any farther along, I have to point out the "elephant in the room"-XSLT's long-winded name. Who came up with that name anyway? I think the people responsible should be forced to say, "Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations," aloud ten times and hope their tongues don't fall off! XSLT's full name may be a mouthful, but this book carves up each piece of XSLT into manageable, chewable morsels.