Editing Server Side Includes (section)

== Design ==
As a simple programming language, SSI supports only one [[Data type|type]]: text. Its [[control flow]] is rather simple, choice is supported, but [[Control_flow#Loops|loops]] are not natively supported and can only be done by recursion using include or using [[URL redirection|HTTP redirect]].{{efn|Nevertheless found in some implementations, including Jigsaw.}} The simple design of the language makes it easier to learn and use than most server-side scripting languages, while complicated server-side processing is often done with [[Server-side scripting#Languages|one of the more feature-rich programming languages]]. SSI is [[Turing completeness|Turing complete]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.janschejbal.de/projekte/ssituring/ |title=Server Side Includes Turing machine, Jan Schejbal. |publisher=Janschejbal.de |access-date=2012-12-06}}</ref>

SSI has a simple syntax: <code>&lt;!--#directive parameter=value parameter=value --&gt;</code>. Directives are placed in HTML comments so that if SSI is not enabled, users will not see the SSI directives on the page, unless they look at its source. Note that the syntax does not allow spaces between the leading "&lt;!--" and the directive. Apache tutorial on SSI stipulates the format requires a space character before the "-->" that closes the element.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/howto/ssi.html#basic|title=Basic SSI Directives and Syntax|access-date=2018-02-09|date=2018-02-09}}</ref>