Re: FN-FORUM xml

date posted 28th September 2002 12:10

> I read the info on XSL and it had an example of converting XML to XHTML
> server side with ASP to get over the lack of browser support. Is there
> any draw backs to this? If not i think I might have a go at doing a site
> with it.

This method of creating sites is lovely once you have put the effort into
refining a working method that works for you as there are so many ways of
achieving the same end result.

Problems you might have/Thing worth remembering
1. If the data in your XML is coming from a database the chances are that
your users will have keyed in nasty characters like & or pasted text from
Word that includes those horrible ` instead of '. This stuff will need
replacing or escaping in CDATA tags
2. Write a good 'transform' subroutine that includes some form of error
reporting for the XSL and XML and use this in an include for every transform
you do. Will save you plenty of time in debugging.
3. Write a little debug routine to output any XML you have built
programmatically to the screen or a file. Again, essential for debugging.

I've been trying to do every site that is big enough to warrant the extra
work using XSL/XML for over a year now and I hate having to go back to
having pages full of ;)

It is so nice having one styleshhet that is used for every page in the site
that you can just fire XML into the get the desired results. I could carp on
about this nonsense for hours so if you want some examples of sites that are
entirely built like this, and some code to look at let me know.

Andy