An application server, configured for dynamically generating a web page
(e.g., HTML) document based on execution of XML documents, dynamically
generates an HTML page having selected form elements based on a stored
XML document that defines available HTML form elements and respective
attributes, and based on user attributes retrieved by the application
server from an open network database server (such as LDAP). The
application server, in response to a request from a user, accesses an XML
document configured for specifying attributes associated with the
request; the XML document may specify as form elements menus that are
available for generation based on qualified user attributes, or may
specify HTML fields that can be generated for display on the HTML page
based on the qualified user attributes. The application server also
retrieves the user attributes, and dynamically generates the HTML page
based on identifying the user attributes matching the qualified user
attributes of the accessed XML document. Hence, HTML pages having form
elements can be dynamically generated, providing personalized HTML pages
without the necessity of modifying CGI scripts or stored HTML pages.