Nesting XML based languages and scripting languages

[Michael Amster]

Hi:

I am new to the world of XML and have been following the development of
SAX, DOM and some of the interfaces with great interest.  We are looking to
change the language of our server side application to an XML based language
from a proprietary language today.  The application is similar to
ColdFusion in that it intersperses commands, queries and control flow with
HTML for output to a client.

We have looked at XSL and think it is too limited to HTML as an output -
we'd like to work with any XML based language for output on the server
side.  Our lack of separation between code and presentation is not elegant,
but it is easy to use and is widely accepted (i.e. ColdFusion)

My questions are:

1. Can we use a DTD to intersperse our language (WEASEL) with any arbitrary
XML based language in PCDATA sections.  We feel that having a DTD for the
language would really help to allow authoring with an XML authoring
environment, but because we wish to work with any arbitrary XML language,
we are not sure of how to create a DTD that allows this. For example:

<WEFOR>
	<WESTART>
		i=0
	</WESTART>
	<WECOND>
		i &lt; 10
	</WECOND>
	<WEINCR>
		i = i + 1
	</WEINCR>
		This is loop # <WEVAR NAME="i"><BR></BR>
</WEFOR>

2. How is HTML 4.0 following the well formed constraint for Java/ECMAScript
when < and & are not allowed in Attribute values (currently the
onmouseover, onclick  and other events are allowed in the attribute value.
Furthermore, how will this be handled in the <SCRIPT
LANGUAGE="JavaScript"></SCRIPT> element? Same problem by my understanding
of the DTD?

Any advice or direction on how these problems are handled would be
appreciated.  The application in question is
(http://www.webeasy.com/products/weasel.htm).

-MA
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-WEBEASY-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~
Michael Amster					mamster at webeasy.com
4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 300			Tel: 310.576.0770
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292		       	Fax: 310.576.2011

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