XML Newbie

Hi Guys,

I'm pretty new to the whole XML thing; I've spent the past week doing a bit of reading on the subect, but still find it pretty arcane.

I'm trying to get up & running with XML, but don't know how to go about. I'm looking for a (downloadable) comlete, comprehesive example or tutorial I can study (XML, XSL, DTD and all other aspects on the subject), so that I can build a fully-functional, data-driven, interactive stand-alone XML application from scratch to final product.

Some tools at my disposal include MySQL, Perl, Apache (not having any trouble with these).

What I'd like to do is;
* Create a Rational Comapny-style DataBase with multiple Users & Products,
* capture data from a web-interface into the DB,
* maipulate data,
* and return Data based on a search via the front-end
* (maybe even apply different style per user).
If I can get this done, anything is possible.

How do I set this up? How does it tie in with MySQL & Perl. Is there a comlete/comprehensive guide I can look at?

Thanks

Jaco