Server Side Includes (SSI)

Article Index

1. Apache Handlers
2. The "include" Directive
3. Time Formats
4. Condtional SSI
5. Time Limited Content using Conditional SSI
6. Page Changed and Copyright Date Footer
7. File Sizes

Apache Handlers

Do you want to use Server Side Includes on your standard .html documents?

If you have root access and can change your apache config files, you can add the following to your httpd.conf or vhost.conf. This will allow Apache to treat .html the same as .shtml!

For those who don't have root access but have access to cPanel. you simply need to follow these steps:

1. Log into your cPanel
2. Locate and click on "Apache Handlers"
3. For the handler, you will input "server-parsed"
4. For the extension, you will input ".html"
5. Click the Add button to save

If your host gives you the option to use a .htaccess file, add the following line to your .htaccess file. If this file does not exist, you can simply create it in notepad.

The "include" Directive

The very basic use of SSI (and perhaps the most useful) is that of the "include" directive. You can use it to display common elements of a website. Common elements can be things like navigation menus, headers and footers.

The main difference between "file" and "virtual" is with file you cannot use "/" or "../" etc...

Time formats

Using Time formats is easy. we use a config directive.

This will configure the SSI time formats used to echo dates and times or in conditional processing. There are many different values to enter to get the info you want to show:

%a	abbreviated weekday name	%A	full weekday name
%b	abbreviated month name	%B	full month name
%c	prefered date and time format	%d	day of month - 01 to 31
%D	date as %m/%d/%y	%e	day of month - 1 to 31
%H	hour - 00 to 23	%I	hour - 01 to 12
%j	day of year - 001 to 366	%m	month of year - 01 to 12
%M	minute - 00 to 59	%p	string containing AM or PM
%r	time as %I:%M:%S %p	%R	time as %H:%M
%S	second - 00 to 59	%T	time as %H:%M:%S
%y	year within century - 00 to 99	%Y	year as CCYY (4 digits)
%Z	timezone name

Condtional SSI

Have you ever wanted to use conditional statements in Server Side Includes. Not many people know that SSI supports conditional statements.

The expression from the flow control code is one of the following:

string1	If string is NOT empty result is true
string1=string2	If string1 is equal to string2 result is true
string1!=string2	If string1 is NOT equal to string2 result is true
string1	If string1 is less than string2 result is true
string1>string2	If string1 is greater than string2 result is true
string1>=string2	If string1 greater than or equal to string2 result is true
(test_condition)	If test_condition TRUE result is true
!test_condition	If test_condition FALSE result is true
test_condition1 && test_condition2	If test_condition1 AND test_condition2 are true result is true
test_condition1 || test_condition2	If test_condition1 OR test_condition2 are true result is true

In this example, we are to "include" a specific iebar.htm page for Internet explorer. Any other browser will be defaultbar.htm.

Time Limited Content using Conditional SSI

Have you ever had content you wanted to appear only between certain dates? Sure you could do this with a scripting language (PERL, PHP, etc...). But why not do it with something easy like SSI. Lets say, you have some sort of special going on, but you find yourself forgetting to take it down from your website once the special is over. The example below demonstrates how you can create content that only displays between 2 given dates.

You can also use this technique to display content at a future date.

Page Changed and Copyright Date Footer

Simple directives to display the current year as the copyright year and display the date a page was last modified.

File Sizes

Simple way of displaying filesizes for downloads or other files.

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Published by: Thomas Penwell
Initially published on: May 12, 2010
Article last modified on: Thursday, January 26, 2012.