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RE: [xml-dev] Caught napping!
>> around, would anything change? Referential integrity, for example,
>> between such mundane objects as customers and purchase orders might be
>> accomodated by treating the customer and his list of POs as a single
>> doc. Or, if the implementation is efficient enough in terms of data
>> footprint, by replicating customer data on each PO.
>Ouch!!!!! A fact about XML structures today, is that they promote data
>redundancy. And unfortunately, storing the customer together with all
>PO's will not guarantee RI as I see it. How do you then ensure, with a
>customer with 100 PO's, that when you change the phone no. of the
>customer, it is guaranteed to be updated on all 100 PO's ?
>I can agree that on a very statical web-site (maybe a bookstore?), you
>could store all the data as XML documents, and put all the info about a
>book into each XML document. But then again, what would be the benefits
>of this ? What we need is XML interfaces to the systems (web.services),
>and then the ability to quickly generate XML on the fly for transmission
>/ multi device rendering using XSLT.
Isn't this the kind of thing that xLink can be used for? Or, at least, this
is the kind of thing we use xLink for. Actually, we use xLink while a
message is live and editable to dynamically insert party and product
elements, and then hardcode the data into the "finished" message (if
necessary - one could send/make available party information and price
catalogue messages to trading partners where possible - so that dynamic
linking can be used at both ends of a transaction). However, one a message
becomes a historical document, I don't see any easy way round actually
inserting all data into the message. After all, say I place an order for a
product, the order is then fulfilled, but subsequently the the price of the
product changes. I don't want to see the new price in my fulfilled order.
All the best
Mark Seaborne
Sterling Commerce
Tapton Park Innovation Centre
Chesterfield
Derbyshire
S41 0TZ
tel +44 (0)1246 245803
fax +44 (0)1246 230117
email mark_seaborne@stercomm.com