Server Side Includes

Summary:

You may have noticed as you browse our support site, that many of our pages end with the shtml extension instead of the more familiar html or htm. This is because we use Server Side Includes (SSI). Used properly, the SSI can help make your pages more responsive and can even help make maintaining your site an easier task.

Put simply, SSI is sort of like using your HTML server as a cut and paste editor. Here is basically what happens when your server handles a request for an SSI document.

• The server reads the document and parses (techie word for chops up and looks for special instructions) it for directives. (another techie word for directions!)
• Follows the instructions that it finds and merges their results into creating a finished document.
• The document is then sent to the client browser.

Server Side Includes (SSI) let you create Web pages which are generated dynamically each time they are requested by a Web browser. All you have to do is embed SSI commands into your HTML. SSI's ease the maintenance of large Web sites by providing a way to insert the contents of a single file into several Web pages.

Included on this page:

• Introduction
• How To Use SSI
• Examples and Resources

Introduction:

Server Side Includes (SSI) can be used to:

• Include headers and footers on several Web pages
• Include a last modification date on a Web page
• Include the output of a CGI program in a Web page
• Use conditional tests to generate Web page content

SSI commands are embedded in your HTML as comments. They are parsed by the server when a file is requested by a Web browser.

How To Use SSI

By default, HTML files are not parsed for SSI commands. To use SSI commands in a file, use a .shtml filename extension. For example, if you put SSI commands in your home page, it should be renamed index.shtml.

Examples and Resources

Here are several simple SSI command examples:

Include the contents of another file
<!--#include file="header.html" -->

Include last modification date
<!--#echo var="LAST_MODIFIED" -->

Include last modification date of another file
<!--#flastmod file="resume.html" -->

Include the contents of a CGI program
<!--#exec cgi="id.cgi" -->

To learn more about SSI and individual SSI commands see:

Introduction to Server Side Includes (an Apache tutorial)
Using Server Side Includes (from Apache Week)
Module mod_include (from Apache documentation)