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The XML FAQ — Frequently-Asked Questions about the Extensible Markup Language
Section 4: Developers
Q 4.16: Can I still use server-side inclusions?
Yes, just make sure the output conforms to XML
This works so long as what they generate ends up as part of an XML-conformant file (ie either valid or just well-formed).
Server-side tag-replacer scripting languages like shtml, PHP, JSP, ASP, Zope, etc store almost-valid files using comments, Processing Instructions, or non-XML markup, which gets replaced at the point of service by text or XML markup (it is unclear why some of these systems use non-HTML/XML markup). There are also some XML-based preprocessors for formats like XVRL (eXtensible Value Resolution Language) which resolve specialised references to external data and output a normalised XML file.