Server Side Includes - SSI
Server Side Includes (SSI) are special html tags
which are read by the server and executed.
One of the more popular commands
<![CDATA[<!--#include virtual="/SomePath/include.html" -->]]>
causes the server to
replace the tag with the file's contents.
The included file should not contain
<![CDATA[<html>, <head>, or <body>]]>
tags.
In practice, there are several problems with this.
For instance, using Apache server, server side includes must be enabled.
There are options for searching all files,
files in a specific directory,
or files with a specific extension (such as .shtml).
On unix machines, you can even tell the server to parse
only those files marked as executable.
Since the server must analize each page
and search for the appropriate tags,
you should use the most restrictive method avaible.
Otherwise, this will slow down the entire server.
References
Author: Robert Clemenzi -
clemenzi@cpcug.org