Custom Web Publishing Guide

Accessing XML data with the Web Publishing Engine 23
To access XML data in a portal, set the view for the database layout to View as Form or View as List. If a user
or script changes the view of the database layout to
View as Table, only the first related record (first row of
the portal) is accessible as XML data.
3. Send an HTTP or HTTPS request in the form of a URL that specifies the FileMaker XML grammar, one
query command, and one or more FileMaker query parameters to the Web Publishing Engine through an
HTML form, an HREF link, or a script in your program or web page. You can also type the URL in a web
browser.
For information on specifying the URL, see the next section, “About the URL syntax for XML data and
container objects.” For information on query commands and parameters, see “Using FileMaker query
strings to request XML data” on page 33, and appendix A, “Valid names used in query strings.”
4. The Web Publishing Engine uses the grammar you specified in the URL to generate XML data containing
the results of your request, such as a set of records from the database, and returns it to your program or web
browser.
5. The web browser, if it has an XML parser, displays the data, or the program uses the data in the way you
specified.
If you specified a client-side stylesheet, the web browser parser also applies the stylesheet instructions. See
“Using server-side and client-side processing of stylesheets” on page 35.
About the URL syntax for XML data and container objects
This section describes the URL syntax for using the Web Publishing Engine to access XML data and container
objects from FileMaker databases. The URL syntax for using XSLT stylesheets is different from XML. See
“About the URL syntax for FileMaker XSLT stylesheets” on page 48 and “About the URL syntax for
FileMaker container objects in XSLT solutions” on page 48.
What’s new in the URL syntax for XML data
The Web Publishing Engine uses a new URL syntax for accessing XML data.
1 FileMaker Pro 6 and earlier versions used the following syntax in requests for XML data:
FMPro?<CGI_request>
This syntax has changed. See the next section, “About the URL syntax for XML data.”
1 The –lay query parameter for specifying a database layout is now required with all query commands except
–dbnames, –layoutnames, and –scriptnames. See
appendix A, “Valid names used in query strings.”
1 The –format parameter is obsolete. The XML grammar for XML requests is now specified in the URL
syntax before the query string. See the next section, “About the URL syntax for XML data.”
Note Unlike XML requests, the grammar for XSLT stylesheets is specified with the –grammar query
parameter. See
“Specifying an XML grammar for a FileMaker XSLT stylesheet” on page 50.
About the URL syntax for XML data
The URL syntax for using the Web Publishing Engine to access XML data from FileMaker databases is:
<scheme>://<host>[:<port>]/fmi/xml/<xml_grammar>.xml[?<query string>]
where:
1 <scheme> can be the HTTP or HTTPS protocol.
1 <host> is the IP address or domain name of the host where the web server is installed.