transfer of XML file

[Gang He]

Hi,
Could someone please tell me the answer to the following questions or
point to
me where I can find something to read: 
Suppose I have a xml file on the server side. In it there are some
elements 
pointing to some external binary entity and external text entity, and
some XML-LINK elements. Now if a client requests this xml file from the
server through the web, will the server send the xml file with all the
external binary and text entity together to the client or the server
only send the xml file and leave the client to issue a second request to
retrieve the external entity? Is there any differece here between the
binary entity and text entity? What about the pages pointed by the URL
in the XML-LINK elements? Is there any way to let the client to specify
when to retrieve the external entity? Does http support the transfer of
xml file? If so, in which way?
Thanks a lot.
Gang

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