Creating Searchable Documents
Another
extensible form of an HTML link that does not use the
<a> tag is one that causes the server to
search a database for a document that contains a user-specified
keyword or words. An HTML document that contains such a link is known
as a searchable document.
The <isindex> Tag (Deprecated)
Before it was deprecated in
both the HTML 4 and XHTML standards, authors used to use the
<isindex>
tag to pass keywords along with a search
engine’s URL to the server. The server then matched
the keywords against a database of terms to select the next document
for display. Today’s authors mostly use forms to
pass information to the server and supporting programs. See Chapter 9 for details.
<isindex>
- Function
Indicates that a document can be searched
- Attributes
action(
),
class,dir,id,lang,prompt,style,title- End tag
None in HTML;
</isindex>or<isindex.../>in XHTML- Contains
Nothing
- Used in
head_content
When a browser encounters the <isindex> tag,
it adds a standard search interface to the document (rendered by
Internet Explorer in Figure 6-8):
<html> <head> <title>Kumquat Advice Database</title> <base href="cgi-bin/quat-query"> <isindex> </head> <body> <h3>Kumquat Advice Database</h3> <p> Search this database to learn more about kumquats! </body> </html>
Figure 6-8. A ...
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