Programming Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with XML

Let’s start by understanding who this book is not for. It’s not designed to teach you XML (in spite of what the title of this book’s appendix suggests). Bookstores are already filled with shelves groaning under the weight of XML texts, and there’s enough information on the Web to help you become an XML guru, if that’s your ambition in life. I’ve generally assumed in this book that you’re familiar with the basic structure of an XML document and that you’re aware of XML-related technologies such as XSL style sheets and schemas. If you have no working experience with XML, you should read the appendix, "Introduction to XML," before reading the rest of the book. The appendix will familiarize you with basic XML knowledge that you need to work with XML and SQL Server. Similarly, I didn’t write the book with the intention of teaching all there is to know about SQL Server or the Transact-SQL language. In fact, I’m counting on your already being familiar with the basic Transact-SQL statements, such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE, and knowing something of the basic architectural and security concepts in SQL Server.

I wrote this book for anyone who needs to understand how to use XML to integrate applications or organizations that store data in a SQL Server database. The book covers XML-related functionality in SQL Server 2000 and describes how this functionality can be used to build a solution that exchanges data in XML format. Because a great deal of the emphasis in this book is on Internet-based applications, you’ll need to be familiar with some basic Web-development techniques for the Microsoft Windows platform, such as Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This book shows you how to use the XML functionality in SQL Server together with these technologies to build integration solutions that work across the Internet. 

With only nine chapters, this book is pretty short. I’ve tried to stick to the main points and avoid lengthy explanations of basic issues or architectural irrelevancies so that you can find the information you need quickly and easily. After all, you’re an advanced developer, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to get straight to the code you need to write in order to solve a particular business problem.