How/where to store my encoded HTML? In DB? In XML?

[darrel]

We have a parent-child table set up to maintain content.

When this table is updated, I do a recursive call through the data and spit
out an XML file.

Then, when we want to display this content, I load up the XML file, attach
the XSL file to it, and do the transformation via VB.net and send it off to
the browser.

The problem is that much of this content is HTML. As such, I'm storing it in
the database as encoded HTML. I'm confused as to when/where I should decode
it.

For starters, I just grabbed the raw data from the DB, spit out the XML, and
then in my XSL file, added a few wrapper HTML tags and dumped it to screen.

This does not work, as I'm combining encoded HTML in the XML file with
regular HTML in my XSL. This is messy, to say the least.

My second thought is to unencode the HTML before putting it into the XML
file, but I have no idea how to do that without invalidating the XML file.

Third thought was to write encoded HTML in my XSL file instead of regular
HTML and then, just prior to rendering it to screen, then unencode the
entire thing. But that makes for a less readable XSL file and doesn't seem
quite right either.

I'm stumped. Any thoughts/suggestions?

-Darrel

[Peter Fallon]

I've been creating my XSLT files to do all the heavy lifting - they
contain the encoded HTML and perform the necessary parsing of the XML to
produce the final product. Howewver I must say that this code does not
drive a website so the size of the XSLT isn't an issue - I use it for
fancy exporting from a normal PC database system.

Yeah, the more complex a web page you want to produce, the more complex
the XSLT file - but this isn't the fault of the XSL process - just that
you needed something complex. In this case I recommend you just use lots
of comments <g>.

You can make a great difference by optimising your HTML first - make
sure you are using predefined CSS styles for all style/formatting, a
separate CSS file, and perhaps only encode the exact part of a page you
need - using framesets and other techniques to minimise repetition.

Finally - a good XML/XSL editor does help a lot. You could also try
investigating one of the products like XML SPY to see if they asist in
generating the code inthe first place.

We have a parent-child table set up to maintain content.

When this table is updated, I do a recursive call through the data and spit
out an XML file.

Then, when we want to display this content, I load up the XML file, attach
the XSL file to it, and do the transformation via VB.net and send it off to
the browser.

The problem is that much of this content is HTML. As such, I'm storing it in
the database as encoded HTML. I'm confused as to when/where I should decode
it.

For starters, I just grabbed the raw data from the DB, spit out the XML, and
then in my XSL file, added a few wrapper HTML tags and dumped it to screen.

This does not work, as I'm combining encoded HTML in the XML file with
regular HTML in my XSL. This is messy, to say the least.

My second thought is to unencode the HTML before putting it into the XML
file, but I have no idea how to do that without invalidating the XML file.

Third thought was to write encoded HTML in my XSL file instead of regular
HTML and then, just prior to rendering it to screen, then unencode the
entire thing. But that makes for a less readable XSL file and doesn't seem
quite right either.

I'm stumped. Any thoughts/suggestions?

-Darrel

[darrel]

Finally - a good XML/XSL editor does help a lot. You could also try

investigating one of the products like XML SPY to see if they asist in
generating the code inthe first place.

I appreciate the reply, but it doesn't really answer my specific question.
If you need HTML, where should it live? Encoded in the DB only? Encoded in
the XML file? If encoded in the XML file, can I decode it coming out?

-Darrel

[Peter Fallon]

Darrel,

The HTML sits in the XSLT file - mixed in with the XSL instructions (or
rather, specified as the tags that are generated from the XML source).
The only trick is that you need to code proper XHTML so it doesn't cause
XML errors. Thus if you need different output, you simply swap XSL files
(for any given XML dataset)

Finally - a good XML/XSL editor does help a lot. You could also try
investigating one of the products like XML SPY to see if they asist in
generating the code inthe first place.

I appreciate the reply, but it doesn't really answer my specific question.
If you need HTML, where should it live? Encoded in the DB only? Encoded in
the XML file? If encoded in the XML file, can I decode it coming out?

-Darrel