How to display XML elements in HTML using Data Islands?

Data Islands is an Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher technology, in which you can bind XML data to HTML tags and display the results in an HTML page.

XML data can be embedded directly between <xml></xml> tags in an html page or it can be loaded from an external xml file.

<xml id="books">
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<books>
   <book>
	<title>OpenGL Programming Guide Fourth Edition</title>
	<location>107</location>
	<publisher>Addison-Wesley</publisher>
	<year>2004</year>
   </book>
   <book>
	<title>Curves and Surfaces for CAGD: A Practical Guide</title>
	<location>116</location>
	<publisher>Academic Press</publisher>
	<year>2002</year>
   </book>
   <book>
	<title>An Introduction to NURBS: With Historical Perspective</title>
	<location>120</location>
	<publisher>Academic Press</publisher>
	<year>2001</year>
   </book>
   <book>
	<title>NURBS: From Projective Geometry to Practical Use</title>
	<location>126</location>
	<publisher>A K Peters</publisher>
	<year>1999</year>
   </book>
</books>
</xml>

Use the src attribute of the <xml> tag to refer to a local XML file.

<xml ID="books" src="books.xml"></xml>

The <xml> HTML tag is used to create an XML Data Island. The ID attribute in the <xml> tag is used to reference the data island. It must match the value of the datsrc attribute of the HTML elements that can accept data source tags.

A list of such HTML elements: <a>, <applet>, <button>, <div>, <frame>, <iframe>, <img>, <label>, <marquee>, <select>, <span>, <table>, <textarea>, and the <input> tags (button, checkbox, hidden, image, password, radio, text).

To bind XML data to an HTML element, add the data source and data field attributes to the HTML element. The datasrc attribute refers to the id attribute of the xml tag preceded by the # symbol

<br />Title:
<span datasrc="#books" datafld="title"></span>
<br />Location:
<span datasrc="#books" datafld="location"></span>
<br />Publisher:
<span datasrc="#books" datafld="publisher"></span> 
<br />Year:
<span datasrc="#books" datafld="year"></span>

Note that the <span> tag, like most HTML elements, will only display a single record.

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