Server Side Include

The server-side include (SSI) facility supported by some web servers defines a special set of directives (comment tags) that are interpreted by the web server before the page is returned to a browser. A page that includes SSI directives is, in essence, a simple template.

Contrast this with approaches that embed scripting commands within the web page (e.g., ActiveServerPages, JavaServerPages, PHP).

One SSI directive causes the web server to include a file in place of the directive. For example:

        [foo.shtml]
        hi <!--#include file="bar.html"--> bye

        [bar.html]
        there

would return to the web browser:

        hi there bye

Another SSI directive causes the directive to be replaced by the result of a command or script.

        [foo.shtml]
        the time is <!--#exec cmd="date"--> and all is well.

(The #exec directive isn't supported by some versions of PersonalWebServer.)

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See Also: http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_include.html for a description of SSI support in Apache.

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InternetInformationServer aspects

IIS can process ServerSideIncludes in non AspApplication mode. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/iissdk/iis/ref_ssi_ssiref.asp.

MicrosoftWebForms can take ServerSideInclude (refer http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/cpgenref/html/cpconserver-sideincludedirectivesyntax.asp), but there are advice in Wrox forums that use of class library assemblies is a better practice (see http://p2p.wrox.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=20220)

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CategoryWebDesign