Operation Manual

474

USING DREAMWEAVER

Displaying XML data with XSLT

Last updated 3/28/2012

If you don’t own the XML page to which you’re linking (for example, if you want to use XML data from an RSS feed

somewhere out on the web), the workflow is a bit more complicated. To perform client-side transformations using

XML data from an external source, you must first download the XML source file to the same directory where your

XSLT page resides. When the XML page is in your local site, you can use Dreamweaver to add the appropriate code

that links it to the XSLT page, and post both pages (the downloaded XML file and the linked XSLT page) to your web

server. When the user views the XML page in a browser, the XSLT page formats the content, just like in the previous

example.

The disadvantage of performing client-side XSL transformations on XML data that comes from an external source is

that the XML data is only partially “dynamic.” The XML file that you download and alter is merely a “snapshot” of the

file that lives elsewhere on the web. If the original XML file out on the web changes, you must download the file again,

link it to the XSLT page, and repost the XML file to your web server. The browser only renders the data that it receives

from the XML file on your web server, not the data contained in the original XML source file.