XML, XSL, XHTML? What goes where!

[ramprage]

Ok I'm lost with all these new web technologies.
Can you use all three together or would that make no sense!


Here is what I understand:

XML = store and structure raw data
XSL = format the look and style of the data (style sheet)
XHTML = new version of HTML that should be used

If I make a site that has the data stored in XML and then formatted in XSL, could I output it in XHTML or does that not make sense?

Please clarify for me!

Thanks!

[jofa]

If I make a site that has the data stored in XML and then formatted in XSL, could I output it in XHTML or does that not make sense?

Makes sense


Except that xml should be a "new" web technology, since it's more than 5 years old

[duckie]

XML - yes, but personally I'm only using it as a data transfer medium. A DBMS is still more efficient at storage.

XSL - close. There are in fact three parts under the XSL umbrella. XSL-FO, XPath and XSLT. XSL-FO (Formatting Objects) is the one which does the presentation.

XHTML - yes. Probably be helpful to think of it as HTML 4.01 with XML rules applied.

[Dr Livingston]

A DBMS is still more efficient at storage.

Umm... Not always; You could use XML as a storage medium if the data was to remain static; ie no changes, such in an archive - thus saving resources as one example I can think off.

[MarcusJT]

And you can keep an XML document in memory as a FreeThreaded DOM, with vastly superior querying performance to a database (depending on what you're doing, of course).

And you can "format" XHTML output using plain XSLT (with CSS, or old-style FONT tags if you must :rolleye: ) without having to use XSL-FO (I've NEVER used it).

[duckie]

Point taken. I don't work with static data sets, thus my skewed world view.

As for the XSL-FO, I've only used it for one project, during my internship. CSS is the way to go.

[MarcusJT]

Then we are agreed!