newbie: include xml content in html

[Rui Maciel]

I'm a clueless newbie who just got started at amateur webdesign (personal
site, sites for a couple of projects,etc..). Right now I only have a basic
knowledge of HTML and CSS.

After my attempt at creating a personal site, I started wondering if it was
possible to store a certain type of content (lists and small data tables
for example) in a XML file and use the information stored in the XML file
in the content of the XML file.

Is it possible? If so, how can it be done?


Thanks in advance
Rui Maciel

 

[Martin Honnen]

After my attempt at creating a personal site, I started wondering if it was
possible to store a certain type of content (lists and small data tables
for example) in a XML file and use the information stored in the XML file
in the content of the XML file.

You can try that but storing data might be better done with a data base.
At least if the data needs to be updated often and by several users of
the web site.
The main issue to decide is whether to use server-side or client-side
programming to extract data from XML and transform it to HTML to be
included in the HTML documents a browser of a visitor to your web site
displays. Not everyone has server-side programming (e.g. PHP or ASP or
JSP or Perl CGI) with his hosting but that is the only way to ensure any
visitor gets the proper content and not only one visiting with a browser
supporting e.g. JavaScript and/or XML and/or client-side XSLT.

HTML documents allow you to include lists (e.g. <ul> or <ol> with <li>
items) and tabular data (e.g. <table>, <thead>, <tbody>, <tr>, <th>,
<td>) thus XML is not needed to have that in an HTML document the
visitors of your web site see.