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How To Serve XHTML to Internet Explorer 6 And 7 as XML Using Content Negotiation

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Jan 24

It seems that XHTML is all the craze now days. Unfortunately very few developers and designers are using it correctly and taking full advantage of it. So why is this?

XHTML can be served as text or XML. It seems that 90% of sites using XHTML are serving it as XML but are failing to serve it correctly to Internet Explorer as XML. Never fear, there is a solution.

So why bother serving it as XML to Internet Explorer? If you do it will mean that your html code will appear as XML and will have to adhere to XML standards. This means that you can be sure the code you are using is extremely compliant. It will also mean that if your page is not valid, it will not display without error. It's an annoying but great way to keep your code clean

Follow these steps:

Serve your page as application/xml to Internet Explorer and as application/xhtml+xml to every other browser:
If InStr(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_ACCEPT"), "application/xhtml+xml") > 0 Then Response.ContentType = "application/xhtml+xml" Else Response.ContentType = "application/xml" End If
Use a special .xsl file at the top of your page above your doctype:
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="xhtml.xsl"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
Contents of xhtml.xsl file:
<stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <template match="/"> <copy-of select="."/> </template> </stylesheet>
Add html element to page:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">

Putting it all together:


<%
If InStr(Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_ACCEPT"), "application/xhtml+xml") > 0 Then
    Response.ContentType = "application/xhtml+xml"
Else
    Response.ContentType = "application/xml"
End If
Response.Charset = "utf-8"
%>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="xhtml.xsl"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
<head>
<title>XHTML</title>
</head>

<body>

</body>
</html>

Sources

Tags: internet explorer, xhtml, xml, xsl ( Add Tag )

Replies:

Matt Wilcox

#1

Wed. March 12, 4:43:43 AM

Hi Neal. Good article, but I thought that IE does not support XHTML sent as XML? The browser used to prompt to download the file rather than serve it as a HTML page. That is why hardly anyone uses XHTML1.1. The point of Content Negotiation was to serve it as application/xml+xhtml to browsers that understand it properly, but as text/html to one's that don't. I've been using CN on my site for years, and IE always gets the text/html MIME.

Firefox certainly works as expected though. Is your solution different somehow, and if so, is it still valid to send XHTML as application/xml rather than application/xml+xhtml ?

http://www.autisticcuckoo.net/archive.php?id=2004/11/03/content-negotiation

Neal Grosskopf

#2

Wed. March 12, 9:03:31 PM

With the code I have above (the xsl I stole from the W3C's website - see my sources) you can actually serve xhtml as application/xml IE. The benefit of this is that your code has to conform to the strict xml validator. Click to view my test page for it which I use the example above.

Matt Wilcox

#3

Fri. March 14, 6:05:49 AM

Ah, excellent!

I had not previously realised that application/xml was an acceptable MIME type, I had thought it had to be application/xhtml+xml

Nice, thanks for the code :)

Nore' Morse

#4

Wed. July 28, 5:54:10 AM

You test page throws error. Tried locally and got the same error.

The XML page cannot be displayed
Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The server did not understand the request, or the request was invalid. Error processing resource 'http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtm...

Neal Grosskopf

#5

Wed. July 28, 7:28:24 AM

Should work now.

#6

Sat. July 31, 1:16:22 PM

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How To Serve XHTML to Internet Explorer 6 And 7 as XML Using Content Negotiation

Recent Articles:

Jan 24

Follow these steps:

Serve your page as application/xml to Internet Explorer and as application/xhtml+xml to every other browser:

Use a special .xsl file at the top of your page above your doctype:

Contents of xhtml.xsl file:

Add html element to page:

Putting it all together:

Sources

Replies:

Wed. March 12, 4:43:43 AM

Wed. March 12, 9:03:31 PM

Fri. March 14, 6:05:49 AM

Wed. July 28, 5:54:10 AM

Wed. July 28, 7:28:24 AM

Reply:

Sat. July 31, 1:16:22 PM

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How To Serve XHTML to Internet Explorer 6 And 7 as XML Using Content Negotiation

Recent Articles:

Jan 24

Follow these steps:

Serve your page as application/xml to Internet Explorer and as application/xhtml+xml to every other browser:

Use a special .xsl file at the top of your page above your doctype:

Contents of xhtml.xsl file:

Add html element to page:

Putting it all together:

Sources

Replies:

Wed. March 12, 4:43:43 AM

Wed. March 12, 9:03:31 PM

Fri. March 14, 6:05:49 AM

Wed. July 28, 5:54:10 AM

Wed. July 28, 7:28:24 AM

Reply:

Sat. July 31, 1:16:22 PM

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