How Do I declare constants in HTML?

I want to use a number or a string several times on a shtml page. Can I declare a variable and use it later? What is the syntax?

int i=5;
<td colspan=i;>

Code (markup):

That's basically the psuedo-code I need translated. Thanks. I did a google search on this and had no luck - appearantly this isn't widely done, or at least isn't widely described in tutorials.

 

quick tutorial ssi - http://www.tdscripts.com/ssi.htmlquick php - http://us2.php.net/tut.php

Pitfall: if you start using php you may have to set a "handler" as most servers are set up to only interpret pages ending .php but you can set this to any or specific endings like .shtml etc. thus you don't have to rename pages.

M

 

Or, dare I say it, use ASP

 

without programming, you can try XML