XML and Databases

XML and Databases

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  XML and Databases Presentation By: OluwasegunAdedugbe and Pavan Kurma Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Technology, Staffordshire University, Stafford, ST18 0AD
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  XML Overview  XML standsfor eXtensible Markup Language  Widely used on the World Wide Web as a means of communication between different types of web components  It is a W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) standard
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  XML Characteristics  XML isa markup language, like HTML  XML primarily consists of tags, attributes and data  XML tags are not pre-defined like HTML  XML tags are user-defined  While HTML defines the layout for data, XML describes the data  XML documents need to be well formed
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  XML Usage  Transporting, Storingand Sharing Data Examples:  Software Updates  XML Sitemaps  Web-based feeds, such as RSS, jobs, weather reports, stock updates, etc.  Third-party application
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  Strengths of XML  Itis written in plain text format  It is platform independent, either hardware or software  It works well with applications  It’s a W3C standard, which makes it universal
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  XML vs. RDMSs  XMLdoes not support traditional elements of relational databases such as triggers, indexes, queries across multiple documents, etc.  XML will not be suitable for very large amounts of data unlike relational databases  XML is file-based while relational databases are server-based
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  XML Issues  Speed –Data retrieval could be relatively slow due to verbose nature  Security – Data could be interrupted during transmission  Scope – Limited scope in comparison to relational databases
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  XML Schema  Schemas areused to validate XML documents  A Schema defines the structure and data constraints of an instance XML document  Examples are DTD (Document Type Definition), XML Schema, etc.
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  XML Validation  Validators checkan XML document against its schema and determines if its valid or not   Examples of XML Validation tools are Core Filing, W3C XML Validator, etc.
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  Conclusion  XML stores, transportsand shares data. It’s data storage capabilities is very limited in relation to relational databases  It is a very vital tool for communicating between applications over networks  It’s use as a means of data storage should be for small/medium-sized amount of data
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  References  USA. Oracle. (2012)Oracle XML DB Developer’s Guide. California: Oracle Corporation. (11.2).  IBM. (2012) Investigate current XML tools. developerWorks. [Online]. (June). Available from http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/xxmltools/index.html. [Accessed: 3 December 2012]  IBM. (2011) Investigate state-of-the-art XML compression techniques. developerWorks. [Online]. (July). Available from http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/xdatacompression/index.html. [Accessed: 3 December 2012]
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  References  W3Schools (2012) XMLTutorial. [Online] Available from: http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp [Accessed: 24 November 2012]  Maneth, S. (2010) Introduction to XML, [Handout] XML and Databases. ICT Module. NICTA and UNSW, Department, South Wales, September 2010.  Gonzalez, M., Prieto, M., Nieto, M. (2009) A Study of Native XML Databases. Department of Computer Science, University of Valladolid, Spain.
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  References  Papamarkos, G., Zamboulis,L., Poulovassilis, A. (2007) XML Databases. School of Computer Science and Information Systems, Birbeck College, University of London.