众所期待的 XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition 面世了.就让我们看看新增加了哪些内容:
XML并没有停留在两年前本书第二版发行时的内容上面. 在这一版中最明显的变化是涵盖了XML 1.1. 然而, 真正在XML 1.1中的改变并非一个多出来的.1. 实际上, 如果你不讲蒙古语, 缅甸语, 阿姆哈拉语, 高棉语或者其他不常用到的语言, 那么XML 1.1不会有什么实质上的意义. 在几乎每个与实际有关的功能上, XML 1.0 与1.1 是相同的. 当然XML 1.0 与1.1 间也有很多小的差异, 但这一点不像 Java 1.0 与 Java 1.1 差异那么大. 因此, 我们在本书中所讨论得 XML 在很大程度上是一回事, 只有在特别涉及两个版本中 XML 1.1 的特性时才会特别指出. 本书大约 98%的内容同等适用于XML 1.0 和 XML 1.1.
我们已经增加了一个新的章节来谈 XInclude, 这是 W3C 为了合并小文档或零散文件成大文档而推出的新标准. Elliotte 负责了XInclude 几乎一半的前期实施, 除此之外还可能使用 XInclude 作为一个产品处理的集成组件写就了第一本书, 所以这对我们来说是个感兴趣的题目. 本书其它的章节已经为它们所能够反映出 XML 1.1 的效果而重新编写, 还有就是为一些技术在过去两年中的变化而做的单独改变. 许多主题已经升级到各种标准的最新版本, 这包括:
Sax 2.0.1
Namespaces 1.1
DOM Level 3
XPointer 1.0
Unicode 4.0.1 最后是一些错误和缺失的修正.
What's New in the Third Edition
XML has not stood still in the two years since the second edition of XML in a Nutshell was published. The single most obvious change is that this edition now covers XML 1.1. However, the genuine changes in XML 1.1 are not as large as a .1 version number increase would imply. In fact, if you don't speak Mongolian, Burmese, Amharic, Cambodian, or a few other less common languages, there's very little new material of interest in XML 1.1. In almost every way that practically matters, XML 1.0 and 1.1 are the same. Certainly there's a lot less difference between XML 1.0 and XML 1.1 than there was between Java 1.0 and Java 1.1. Therefore, we will mostly discuss XML in this book as one unified thing, and only refer specifically to XML 1.1 on those rare occasions where the two versions are in fact different. Probably about 98% of this book applies equally well to both XML 1.0 and XML 1.1.
We have also added a new chapter covering XInclude, a recent W3C invention for assembling large documents out of smaller documents and pieces thereof. Elliotte is responsible for almost half of the early implementations of XInclude, as well as having written possibly the first book that used XInclude as an integral part of the production process, so it's a subject of particular interest to us. Other chapters throughout the book have been rewritten to reflect the impact of XML 1.1 on their subject matter, as well as independent changes their technologies have undergone in the last two years. Many topics have been upgraded to the latest versions of various specifications, including:
SAX 2.0.1
Namespaces 1.1
DOM Level 3
XPointer 1.0
Unicode 4.0.1
Finally, many small errors and omissions were corrected throughout the book.
