Re: [xml-dev] Granularity

[Michael Sokolov <sokolov@ifactory.com>]

On 1/6/2012 9:55 AM, Andrew Welch wrote:
>> Many XML databases work best when you have lots of small documents; a few
>> work well when you have one giant all-embracing document.
> The problem with one large doc is you will only get 1 hit as a result
> for multiple matches... instead of n hits for n docs that each contain
> a match.
>
> You can work around that, but in general its best if your docs
> correspond to the number of results you would expect for a given
> search.
>
>
I guess it depends on how the indexing works - you might be able to 
index at a sub-document level and search using xpath within documents; 
xslt lets you do this on the fly at least.  But it's true that most of 
the well-known xml dbs index at the document level.  I guess in 
MarkLogic they have a way to "fragment" sub-documents, but the 
recommendation generally seems to be not to use it, and to fragment your 
documents yourself.

-Mike