XML, HTML And SQL Server 2000??

[EliseFreedman]

I am currently preparing for my SQL Server 70-229 certification. I am learning about XML at the moment and how it can be used to run queries against SQL Server databases. My Question is can the output from the XML document be output as a formatted HTML document. If So, how would I go about this? Im particularly curious as a friend has emailed me asking for help in developing her website with a searchable recipe database. I was wondering if XML can be used for this purpose.

 

[JontyMC]

HTML is basically a subset of XML (XML specifically for viewing in browsers). XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language) is used to transform XML. You can use XSL to format the XML however you like, thus it is possible (and probably its most used function) to format it in HTML. A good learning point is:

http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/xsl_languages.asp

You can also manipulate XML using the DOM, server-side or client-side.

If your friends recipe database is not too large, you could store all the recipes in an XML file:

<recipebook>
<recipe>
<ingredients>......</ingredients>
<cookingmethods>......<cookingmethods>
</recipe>
<recipe>
......
</recipe>
......
</recipebook>

This could then be manipulated with XSL or DOM to produce HTML pages, but if there are many recipes (>2000) then a proper database would be better option.