XForms Everywhere

I just hit a really telling example of how XML and XForms can deliver incredible productivity. The requirement: creating a dropdown menu displaying the list of all the world’s countries in French, using ISO names and codes. Here is how you do it with XForms:

1. Download the XML file containing the list of countries from ISO (after finding it with Google). The file contains entries of the type:

   <ISO_3166-1_Entry>
       <ISO_3166-1_Country_name>SUISSE</ISO_3166-1_Country_name>
       <ISO_3166-1_Alpha-2_code>CH</ISO_3166-1_Alpha-2_code>
   </ISO_3166-1_Entry>
   

2. Import the file in your XForms page with:

   <xforms:instance id="countries-instance" src="iso_3166-1_list_fr.xml"/>
   

3. Refer to the list of country from the select1 control:

   <xforms:select1 ref="country" appearance="minimal">
       <xforms:label>Country</xforms:label>
       <xforms:itemset nodeset="instance('countries-instance')/*">
           <xforms:label ref="ISO_3166-1_Country_name"/>
           <xforms:value ref="ISO_3166-1_Alpha-2_code"/>
       </xforms:itemset>
   </xforms:select1>
   

And that’s it! Can you actually imagine anything simpler, in any language?