xml-dev - Re: Embedding SQL statements in XML

[Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@rpbourret.com>]

"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" wrote:
> 
> Wouldn't wrapped SQL be an improvement?  Otherwise,
> aren't we going to see a lot of vendor-specific
> dialects FOR XML in SQL?  Actually, I think that is
> exactly the kind of problem that Consortiums can
> address successfully since in essence it deals
> directly with interoperability and extensions.

I think that eventually there will be a standard way to deal with this
and that it will come, in part and possibly in total, from the W3C. I'll
put on my wizard's hat now and predict that the standard will consist of
two parts:

1) The W3C's query language, and
2) An ODBC-like API.

This should be buildable on top of any XML data store, whether it's a
native XML database, relational data exposed as XML, or an email file
with a beefy query engine.

Note that the XML:DB Initiative (http://www.xmldb.org) is taking a first
crack at the second part.

-- 
Ronald Bourret
Programming, Writing, and Training
XML, Databases, and Schemas
http://www.rpbourret.com