RE: HTML Forms and XSL

Subject: RE: HTML Forms and XSL
From: Ben Robb <Ben@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2000 17:18:05 -0000
You should be able to wrap any of the parsers into a COM object and call it
easily from ASP. This answers the first question - yes, it is fairly
straightforward to transform XML on the fly using ASP.

Secondly, in terms of using ASP, XML and forms together, if you have done it
in ASP + HTML, then there is no reason why you cannot do it in ASP + XSL/
ASP + DOM. There are a few tricks you can do to get over some of the more
obvious problems.

If you are using ASP, then there is nothing to stop you putting ASP into the
stylesheet - it is messier, and less transportable than pure XSL, but there
are some things that are simply easier to do in ASP (server side querystring
and variable processing for a start). It works because you are calling the
XSL page through the web server - thus it will run asp.dll against it before
sending the result back to the ASP page which is combining the two. XSLT
processors don't really care what the file extension is on the page as long
as it is a valid and well formed XSL page.

Lastly, if you are thinking about using SQL server as your DB I would
recommend having a play with SQLXML. This is an extension to SQL and MS
ISAPI/ ASP and allows you to create XML pages on the fly from the DB without
using ADO. It is said to be about 600x faster than traditional SQL + ADO
calls.

In terms of implementation, it is fairly straightforward - you simply wrap
the SQL inside your XML structure as a seperate namespace...

<snip>

<root xmlns:sql="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-sql">
<sql:query >
select ID,ShortName,LongName,Address from clients
for xml auto
</sql:query>
</root>

</snip>

The "for xml auto" automatically assigns the output as a string of xml. The
output of this gives the following (which is what the XSLT parser actually
sees):

<root xmlns:sql="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-sql">
	<clients>
		<ID/>
		<ShortName/>
		<LongName/>
		<Address/>
	</clients>
</root>


[I'm probably going to be jumped on for discussing non-XSLT issues, now -
sorry *grin*]


Hope this helps...

Ben

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mauricio Parra [mailto:m_parra@xxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: 27 December 1999 17:50
> To: XSL-List@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: HTML Forms and XSL
> 
> 
> I have been tasked with producing a web form interface
> for a intranet application which will pull data from a
> database and generate generates XML data trees in
> response to user choices. I am supposed to use ASP
> (Active Server Pages) to drive the conversion (via
> XSL) of the XML data coming from the application into
> plain vanilla HTML that can be read by any 4.0 or
> higher browser.
> 
> I have seen a few examples of ASP used with XML and
> XSL but no examples anywhere of HTML forms used with
> these tools. The forms I am speaking of contain
> numerous selection lists as well as option button
> groups. Not only do I need to be able to create these
> forms dynamically but I must also have the appropriate
> selection indicated in the various lists and groups
> based on the choices the user made in a previous form.
> The user then must be able to change the indicated
> selections if desired before sending it all back to
> the application for further processing.
> 
> This is pretty standard ASP and HTML form stuff but
> the addition of the XML adds a wrinkle that I'm not
> sure can be handled. Does anyone know of examples of
> this being done. Are we barking up the wrong tree
> technologically speaking?
> 
> (Mind you I didn't choose the technologies, I just
> need to make them work...)
> 
> Mauricio Parra
> m_parra@xxxxxxxxx
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