May 27, 2021 XML
2. Store XML files on the server
3. XML is generated from the ASP
5. XML is generated from the database
An XML file is a plain text file that resembles an HTML file.
XML can be easily stored and generated through standard Web servers.
XML files are stored on an Internet server in exactly the same way as HTML files.
Start Windows Note book and write the following lines:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<note>
<from>Jani</from>
<to>Tove</to>
<message>Remember me this weekend</message>
</note>
Then save the file on a Web server .xml file name, such as "note."
XML can be generated on the server side without installing any XML software.
To generate an XML response from a server - simply write the following code and save it as an ASP file on the Web server:
<%
response.ContentType="text/xml"
response.Write("<?xml version='1.0' encoding='ISO-8859-1'?>")
response.Write("<note>")
response.Write("<from>Jani</from>")
response.Write("<to>Tove</to>")
response.Write("<message>Remember me this weekend</message>")
response.Write("</note>")
%>
Note that the content type of this response must be set to "text/xml".
See how this ASP file returns from the server.
If you want to learn ASP, please find the ASP tutorial on our home page.
To generate an XML response from the server using PHP, use the following code:
<?php
header("Content-type: text/xml");
echo "<?xml version='1.0' encoding='ISO-8859-1'?>";
echo "<note>";
echo "<from>Jani</from>";
echo "<to>Tove</to>";
echo "<message>Remember me this weekend</message>";
echo "</note>";
?>
Note that the content type of the response header must be set to "text/xml".
See how this PHP file returns from the server.
If you want to learn PHP, please find the PHP tutorial on our home page.
XML can be generated from a database without installing any XML software.
To generate an XML database response from the server, simply write the following code and save it as an ASP file on the Web server:
<%
response.ContentType = "text/xml"
set conn=Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn.provider="Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;"
conn.open server.mappath("/db/database.mdb")
sql="select fname,lname from tblGuestBook"
set rs=Conn.Execute(sql)
response.write("<?xml version='1.0' encoding='ISO-8859-1'?>")
response.write("<guestbook>")
while (not rs.EOF)
response.write("<guest>")
response.write("<fname>" & rs("fname") & "</fname>")
response.write("<lname>" & rs("lname") & "</lname>")
response.write("</guest>")
rs.MoveNext()
wend
rs.close()
conn.close()
response.write("</guestbook>")
%>
View the actual database output of the ASP file above.
The above example uses an ASP with an ADO.
If you want to learn ASP and ADO, please find the tutorial on our home page.
The following ASP code converts the XML file to XHTML on the server:
<%
'Load XML
set xml = Server.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")
xml.async = false
xml.load(Server.MapPath("simple.xml"))
'Load XSL
set xsl = Server.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")
xsl.async = false
xsl.load(Server.MapPath("simple.xsl"))
'Transform file
Response.Write(xml.transformNode(xsl))
%>
The instance explanation
This ASP instance creates a simple XML document and saves it to the server:
<%
text="<note>"
text=text & "<to>Tove</to>"
text=text & "<from>Jani</from>"
text=text & "<heading>Reminder</heading>"
text=text & "<body>Don't forget me this weekend!</body>"
text=text & "</note>"
set xmlDoc=Server.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM")
xmlDoc.async=false
xmlDoc.loadXML(text)
xmlDoc.Save("test.xml")
%>
That's the whole story of this section, and in the next section we'll introduce you to the advanced XML DOM.