How to display XML on IE8

To open a .xml file all you need to do is double click on it and it will open in IE8. Attached is a .xml file to try - because of the BBS software restrictions on attachment extensions it has been renamed .txt. After downloading rename to .xml and double click on it.

If your .xml file is giving errors it may be corrupted.

 

XML is similar in many respects to HTML - see XML

AFAIK - and XML is outside of my league - what you saw is all that you will see.

 

You don't, XML doesn't DO anything by itself, but you can view & edit the XML in any text editor as it's just a text file.. XML was designed to transport and store data. HTML was designed to display data.

XML is never really a database, but it can store information. XML is used as a means of accessing or formatting data that may be in a database, or an XML file can be used to hold other types of stored data.

Applications can use XML. XML can be used to hold application settings, interface settings, preferences, etc. These things can be stored in an XML file which is checked when the application is started.

see http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_whatis.asp

 

http://www.w3schools.com/xml/tryit.asp?filename=tryxml_display_table

 

Works in IE8 just fine. What do you see in the right frame? You should see a table.
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/tryit.asp?filename=tryxml_display_table

 

Yes or No question:
What do you see in the right frame? You should see a table.
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/tryit.asp?filename=tryxml_display_table

It won't work locally for 2 reasons:

XMLHttpRequest is a function that requires the existence of a Web server.
MS introduced into IE something called Local Machine Lockdown which prevents the execution of scripts in local documents (cached Internet files and Web development files)

Possible solutions are:
Use a real Web server with an actual fully qualified domain name.
Use IE Mark of the Web
Use different javascript
Use Firefox (works)

Also:
IE8 does not fully support XML yet. IE9 does, but is still in beta, stay away from it presently.

 

Huh?

From what I gather, you want to be able to load a local html file (saved on your computer) and have its javascript load the XML data in the local XML file (saved on your computer).

My previous post explains why you cannot do that in Internet Explorer and also I provided links that explain why it cannot be done UNLESS you try some of the possible solutions.

XML is designed to be loaded FROM a Web server, not from a file you created and store locally on your computer. At least the javascript in the above example is for loading XML data that exists in an XML file on a Web server.

You will have to use different javascript functions to get local XML data rendered in Internet Explorer. And even then you will have difficulties due to Internet Explorer classifying XML files as Active Content. These are security "features" built into Internet Explorer.

Though they are really not features, they are in place because Internet Explorer's inherent weaknesses can be used to exploit the local file system by malicious Web sites.

I am NOT going to sit down and write the javascript you need to use. You can find that info using Google.

Getting Active Content to run locally in Internet Explorer (any version after IE6) is a task that can take hours of testing and debugging, and goes far beyond the purposes of this forum.

Firefox does not hove those "security features" like IE does and so will render the XML content readily. This is because Firefox is not tied into the operating system like IE is so tied.

 

It depends upon where the locally stored data is.

For example, the data can be stored directly in the html file itself and the browser will display it.

If the data is not already in the html file then it has to somehow get written to the html file "on the fly ". This is done using some type of programming language such as java or javascript. Or for data stored on a Web server other languages can be used, such as perl, php, etc.

The above w3schools example works in Firefox when both the html and xml files are on the local computer.

Maybe if you stated exactly what you want to accomplish, in detail, your problem could get remedied faster.