Sams Teach Yourself XML in 24 Hours

Using XML Data Islands to Read Files of Stored Messages

For the final exercise of this hour, you'll simulate the storage and retrieval of a collection of messages. One XML file will be a listing of all of the XML files that contain messages. Each of those files will contain a single stored message. An HTML SELECT box will be used to select the file to open, that file will be opened, and the desired message will be displayed.

This is actually a very typical scenario. Everybody receives email messages, some of which we save and some of which we don't. We tend to archive the important ones on a daily basis for later viewing if necessary. Since you've used XML to define email messages, your data files are in XML. Therefore, this is your first real-world ...