XML Form Processing Framework

This paper describes the a framework for processing Web forms with XML documents. In the framework, a Web form is defined with three XML files which defines data structure, presentation, and input assistance rules. The framework provides an XML Form Engine that generates an HTML-formatted Web form from the three files. The generated Web form includes script programs that realize the functions defined in the input-assistance-rule file. The script programs detect a user’s input operations, and then provide input assistance to help the user’s input data into the form. An application developer can create an XSL file, that defines the form presentation, in a WYSIWYG environment. By using the framework, the application developer can efficiently create a Web application that handles Web forms.