                      Bilstone HTML Template Parser
                      =============================


Overview.
---------

One of the problems with cgi programs on the web has been the need for them
to output all of the html tags required to build the pages along with the
data. A program which is accessing a database, for example to produce a list of customers, would not only have to walk the table of customers details and 
output them, it would also have to output all of the html tags, javascript 
code, etc to build up the page.

This means that any changes to the layout of the web page have to be made by
a programmer, and web page design tools (Frontpage, homepage, etc) cannot be
used to structure the page.


What the parser does.
---------------------

The parser is an attempt to break the html page source away from the cgi code.
This makes the cgi programmer responsible for obtaining the variable data, and
a web page designer responsible for building the web page which will contain
that data.

Both the programmer and designer will therefore be free to concentrate on using
their skills.


Ian Steel.	(ian@bilstone.co.uk)
April 1999
