Re: OT: XML Server dream

["Oren Ben-Kiki" <oren@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Liam R. E. Quin <liamquin@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I have seen 3 basic approaches.  Of these, one approach almost never
> works, or if it does, dramatically increases sales of snacks and
> coffee while people wait for a response when it's used.
>
> The approaches are
> (1) decompose every element into a field in a relational or OO database...
> (2) decompose down to paragraphs, but store mixed content as blobs...
> (3) store documents in flat files...

> There are many varioations on these.

What we do is (2) + (1); we store each "document" as a blob, but we first
extract key data from it and use it to create indices for fast queries. This
works for very unstructured documents, as long as one is willing to accept
documents which have no value for a key. And, of course, you need to be able
to extract the key from the document, and know the set of relevant keys in
advance. It is a very natural extension of the normal SQL practice of
declaring indices based on record fields. I wouldn't be surprised to see it
in "XML databases". Until then, it is pretty easy to simulate.

Share & Enjoy,

    Oren Ben-Kiki


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