A Final Word

In this column we continued our series on Web services. We focused here on the XML format which is the main medium for sending and receiving Web services. We showed you first the big advantage of XML and XSLT: total separation between data and format (unlike HTML, where data and format are mixed). We guided you through a sample XML file, and explained its hierarchical structure. We used the MyDVD Rental Store's report to teach you how to convert XML to HTML using XSLT. The features and constructs of XSLT were the main thrust in this column, We showed you how to loop through XML data elements in XSLT, how to format numbers, how to sum data elements, how to define variables, and how to reuse them. We also explained how to define and use conditional statements in XSLT.

In this column you have learned:

• How to explain the XML popularity
• How to interpret XML code
• How to convert XML to HTML
• How to loop through XML data tags
• How to format numbers by XSLT
• How to add up XML data entries
• How to define and use variables in XSLT
• How to implement conditional statements in XSLT