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Filtering HTML on a Web Server

All requests which reach Web Servers are responded with HTML streams back to the requesting client. Is there a way I can filter ALL the HTML output from the Web Server BEFORE it is sent to the client. This has nothing to do with files with specific extensions which I want to handle differently but with all the HTML output of the Web Server. I want to identify a specific tag which might be in any of the output and DO SOMETHING when I find it...

Thanx....

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mouatts

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ariefishler

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Thanks for the answer....this is more or less what I expected but,
Before I accept I just want to clarify some things: I actually need to parse only HTML files (static, dynamic and any other created HTML type) which pass through the Web Server at a specific site.
I think that the part you wrote about "There is a slight problem with this in that whilst HTML files are parsed most other types are not. So you will also need to include the code to parse any others that you wish to implement this upon and configure the server accordingly. " becomes irelevant isn't it?

Can you elaborate on the other part you wrote "The basic approach is that when an HTML page is transmitted by the server the server reads the head section of the page and transmits any HTTP messages indicated by HTTP-EQUIV meta tags". What is the web server doing exactly here. I could not understand it from what you wrote. Do u also mean that I will have to hook the extension at the end of this parsing done by the server?

What I am trying to do is to plant my own tag in the HTMLs and parse it with my own code. This is something like Cold Fusion is doing if you know the product, but I think they have a specific extension for their files, and maybe that is how they map it to their code.

Wouldn't it be just easier to use a CGI at the place I want my special tag and make this CGI do what I want instead of parsing all the HTML. How much will I pay in communication time? (The HTML goes to the browser and then the CGI/Servlet is being called again from the BROWSER. Will it be expensive?)

Thanks....It can sure help :)