Returning XML data streams from server

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The  scenario I am trying to create is as follows:-

 

5. Client sees XSL processor output on browser

 

It is the step 3 to step 5  that is posing a problem

 

In case of a normal http://..... request scenario involving HTML, the server returns an HTML stream which the client end browser automatically parses and displays using it's inbuilt HTML processor.On a similar note, in case of an http://... request involving XML,

 

1. Is the XML data stream returned from the server end (like HTML)?

 

2. Will the XML data stream be parsed AUTOMATICALLY using the browser XML parser at the client end(in case of  IE4)?

 

3. What if I have a DTD associated with  the returned XML stream?Will the parser(MSXML parser for IE4) validate the returned XML stream against it's DTD?

(If I mention something like <!DOCTYPE HDR SYSTEM "temp.dtd"> in my XML)

 

4. Can the  XML parsed stream now be fed to an XSL processor plugin(MSXSL ActiveX, since I use that) alongside with an XSL stylesheet for displaying xml data output?

 

 

As of now:-

 

1.  I am storing my XML data in a temp.xml file at the server

 

2.  I am explicitly invoking the XML parser(MSXML in my case) for parsing the temp.xml file(instead of the inbuilt IE4 XML parser doing it for me at the client end)

 

3.  I am passing the temp.xml file as a parameter to the XSL processor(MSXSL ActiveX) rather than passing it the XML parse tree.

 

I feel that I am not doing the right thing here. I feel things should go the same way as they do in case of http:// requests and HTML.Am I correct in my thinking?