[thelist] updating cascading 'select' form elements fromadatabase

Diane Soini dianesoini at earthlink.net
Fri Aug 13 09:30:32 CDT 2004


On Friday, August 13, 2004, at 04:10 AM, 
thelist-request at lists.evolt.org wrote:
>
>> SQL Server can generate XML on the fly (eg using FOR XML
>> AUTO) and serve this over HTTP. That would probably solve the
>> problem of generating the XML from the datastore.
>
> All interesting and educational; thank you.
>
> I'm still waiting for the part where it gets easier ;)
>
> *If* we do this at all, I think we'll just grab the data at the outset,
> create some JavaScript arrays, and use them to populate the selects as
> required. Unless someone can really convince me this XML concept will 
> be
> easier/better somehow in the long run
>
> Thanks, all. It's been interesting.

You are exactly right. It's not better if you don't have a lot of data. 
But if you were creating an interface with, for instance, 15 makes of 
cars, each make with 15 models, and each model with every year back to 
1972, then it might make more sense to use xml than send down all that 
data as javascript arrays.

Just file it away as a great technique to use someday. :)



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