XML Data Islands

Internet Explorer let you paste an XML document inside the page and bind its rows straight into an HTML table with two attributes.

In 2026: Dead. datasrc and datafld were Internet Explorer only, and the binding stopped working in IE10's standards mode. Every current browser renders the inline XML as naked text and leaves the bound table empty, so you can see the whole ambition collapse in one screen: the data is right there and nothing reads it.

Where it came from: Microsoft XML Data Islands, Internet Explorer 5, MSDN 1999. The binding died in Internet Explorer 10's standards mode. Wikipedia ↗

<!-- Inline XML, then bind its fields into a table. Internet Explorer only. -->
<xml id="cds">
  <catalog>
    <cd><title>Homework</title><artist>Daft Punk</artist></cd>
    <cd><title>Dummy</title><artist>Portishead</artist></cd>
  </catalog>
</xml>

<table border="1" datasrc="#cds">
  <thead><tr><th>Title</th><th>Artist</th></tr></thead>
  <tr>
    <td><span datafld="title"></span></td>
    <td><span datafld="artist"></span></td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p>In IE5 this table filled itself from the XML above. Here it stays empty.</p>