This book should be read in a linear fashion, from cover to cover, in order to get the best out of what it offers: a solid entry-level tutorial on Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT). The author organizes the book, and presents the information, in a way that allows the reader to gradually obtain the information needed to finish understanding and applying XSLT from scratch.

Fitzgerald focuses on explaining the template-based approach of XSLT, and how it is different from the classic approach of scripting, procedural, and object-oriented languages. The book covers the use of XSLT functions in detail, and the chapters are organized as follows: “Transforming Documents with XSLT,” “Building New Documents with XSLT,” “Controlling Output,” “Traversing the Tree,” “XPath and XSLT Functions,” “Copying Nodes,” “Using Variables and Parameters,” “Sorting Things Out,” “Numbering Lists,” “Templates,” “Using Keys,” “Conditional Processing,” “Working with Multiple Documents,” “Alternative Stylesheets,” “Extensions,” “XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0,” “Writing an XSLT Processor Interface,” and “Parting Words.”

The book has an issue that could be seen as a weakness, regarding the quality of the examples used. The examples are well selected, in terms of increasing complexity; they follow the content presented; and are well explained. There are, however, no real-world or project-based examples to help the reader to make a connection with a real application.

The book has an excellent presentation and layout, as well as a very complete index; all are standard features found in O’Reilly books (tips, traps, and so on). It also has a very useful glossary of terms. The code can also be downloaded from the book’s Web site.

Fitzgerald points out the relationship between each concept presented and the XSLT specification, and the upcoming XSLT 2.0 specifications are also highlighted.

You will find here a concise, easy-to-follow book that will allow you to start working with the XSLT language; it is a very good choice to use to start working with Extensible Markup Language (XML) transformations, and to get the basic information you will need to be effective, and to understand a programmer’s reference, or even the specification.