Re: [xml-dev] XML-enabled databases, XQuery APIs

[Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@rpbourret.com>]

Michael Kay wrote:

>>What would be the consequences to XML datatypes in relational 
>>databases should an XML binary standard be created?
>>
> None, I would have thought. I wouldn't expect an RDB to represent XML data
> internally using either the standard ("XML") serialization or any standard
> binary serialization, I would expect it to use its own internal
> representation. Thus the fact that there's more than one standardized
> external representation shouldn't matter one iota: provided of course that
> the representations are truly equivalent.

Ditto. It's worth remembering that some native XML databases / XML data 
types aren't even implemented using a binary format in the sense that's 
being discussed. Examples include hashtables of XPaths and DOM trees 
stored in OO databases. All of which makes me wonder about the origin of 
use case 3.11 in the binary XML use cases spec (XML Documents in 
Persistent Store).

(I was also curious about use case 3.6 -- Electronic Documents -- since 
some implementations of these are done today on top of embedded native 
XML databases. The use case description asks of the binary format many 
of the things found in native XML databases / an XML data type: indexes 
for random access, security, efficient update, ability to combine 
document fragments, and so on. I suppose the idea is that a generic 
document browser based on such a format would require less memory than a 
DOM-based browser and an embedded native XML database.)

-- Ron