Re: [9fans] httpd scripting

[William Ahern <william@25thandClement.com>]

 From telnet@wagner.Princeton.EDU.composers Wed Jul  8 06:40:19 1998
Newsgroups: comp.compilers
> You can get away with tree-like behavior in C if you use varargs stuff.
> I'll risk my reputation (:-)) by admitting to an even more disgusting hack:
> ---
> void new_section(char *title, char *img_name, int h, int w) {
>     emit(html_list,
> 	    html_p,
> 	    html_hr,
> 	    html_br,
>             html_region, "center",
>                 html_region, "h1",
> 	            html_text, title,
>             html_tag, "img",
> 	        html_param, "src", html_string, fname,
> 	        html_param, "height", html_text, h,
> 	        html_param, "width", html_text, w,
> 	        0,
>             0);
> }
<snip>
>
> A disgusting hack?  Absolutely.
>
> But it's also an order of magnitude more powerful than any other
> dynamic HTML tool I've worked with, and it only took me an hour or so
> to implement.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

this is very similar to XSL: trees, nodes, concept of tags built into
language. c/o xsltproc from libxml2 for an XSLT processor, and zvon.org
for really good tutorials.

the beauty of XSL is that you can cleanly separate your content production
logic from your presentation logic.

- Bill