Re: Primary and Foreign Keys

[Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@rpbourret.com>]

"Thomas B. Passin" wrote:
> 
> [Ronald Bourret]
> 
> >
> > 6) Leave the key value out of the XML document. This requires that
> > nesting is used to indicate key relationships and makes sense when: (a)
> > key values are generated by the database, and (b) the data is being
> > transferred to a different database. Such values not guaranteed to be
> > unique in the second database.
> >
> 
> I almost included this thought in my post, but didn't because it occurred to
> me that even if you nested a child entity within a parent, you might still
> need to refer to it from somewhere else rather than duplicate its data. 

True. The decision of whether to duplicate the data probably depends on
how you are processing the document. With SAX, it's easier to process
duplicate data, since it reduces caching. It also depends on what role
the document plays. If it's a simple data transfer -- the document will
be created once, read, and destroyed -- duplicate data probably isn't
that dangerous. If the document will be around for a while -- especially
if it can be updated -- duplicate data raises the possibility of
introducing inconsistencies.

> So
> it seemed that eliminating the ID and nesting could be orthogonal.  A
> case-by-case decision, methinks.

Semi-orthogonal. If you eliminate the ID, you have to nest in order to
show the relationship (unless I'm missing something). If you nest, you
don't have to eliminate the ID.

-- Ron