XML Tutorial
Lesson 3: Authoring XML Data Islands

September 4, 1998

What is an XML data island?

A data island is XML code that exists within an HTML page. A data island allows you to integrate XML into your HTML page and script against that XML without having to load the XML through script or through the <OBJECT> tag. Anything that can be in a well-formed XML document can be inside a data island. This includes processing instructions, DOCTYPE declarations, and internal subsets.

The XML for a data island can be either inline, for example:

<XML ID="XMLID">
  <customer>
    <name>Herbert Hanley</name>
    <custID>81422</custID>
  </customer>
</XML>

or referenced through an SRC attribute on the XML tag, for example:

<XML ID="XMLID" SRC="customer.xml"></XML>

Authoring guidelines

Simply author XML. Place that XML within an XML element, and give that XML element an ID.

Try it!

Sorry! The interactive exercises require Internet Explorer 5 Beta .

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