On Jul 26, 2004, at 7:40 PM, Owen Walcher wrote:
> I am just saying, regardless of the schema of the XML (an industry
> standard
> interchange or internal structures) why not leave it in XML? Why
> always
> some other storage mechanism that either disassembles the XML or makes
> querying, updating and deleting in place nearly impossible?
>
This is somewhat of a perma-thread on this list. XML is inherently
hierarchical, so a "pure" XML database will probably be hierarchical,
too.
At one time hierarchical and relational databases were competing
technologies, but overall the relational model, and relational
databases, won out. The relational model is now more developed and
generally accepted to be superior to the hierarchical model for most
uses. (Please correct me if I'm wrong or oversimplifying here.)
So the best way to frame your question is "Does a hierarchical model or
a relational model best solve my business problem?" If the answer is
hierarchical, it probably makes sense to always store your documents as
XML and query/update/insert in-place. If the answer is relational, it
may make more sense to store your data relationally and only
consume/create XML at the system's boundaries.
-jimbo
Fantastic - Excelsior! 2 - Excelsior! Path
XML Tools for Mac OS X
http://www.homepage.mac.com/jimbokun
