On Sat, 2002-03-09 at 13:13, James Cox wrote: > Matt, > > Are you suggesting development of a wrapper around MySQL to convert XML to > SQL and back, so that you would have a pseudo XML front end to mysqld?
James, Well 'wrapper' and 'pseudo XML front end' are kind of nebulous terms and phrases. :) But yeah basically. Functionality can be added to the MySQL client library (libmysqlclient) -- which is the library that holds all the C API functions and whatnot. It is the library that your PHP, Perl DBI, Java MySQL drivers link against in order to be able to talk to the MySQL server. http://www.mysql.com/doc/C/_/C_API_function_overview.html So for instance, for XML retrieval of your results it would be quite trival to add additional API calls to libmysqlclient that return XML to your application. However, loading an XML file into your MySQL server (via the C API) would be a more difficult and tricky task. DTDs would have to be defined, some software would have to manage these DTDs so that the data in the XML file could be correctly mapped into your database schema, etc etc. You can't just load any old XML file and expect MySQL to know how to deal with it. There would have to be a DTD (the file that defines the format of your XML file) submitted with the XML file so that things could be interpretted correctly. This means that this would involve an SGML parser (such as nsgmls) and some way to validate the XML file (I think nsgmls can do this), etc etc. This brings us to the point where if all of this was added to libmysqlclient, we would start running into bloatware issues there also. That's why I suggested that probably an external process (a daemon) that provides a "bridge" (as Rob ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) suggested earlier in this thread) would be better suited to *inputting* XML into MySQL. Output is easy. Input is more difficult. :) As you may be aware we are currently working diligently to add big functionality to MySQL (sub-selects, store procedures, failsafe replication, etc). That makes something like this XML stuff better suited for sponsorship. I'm not saying that with sponsorship, this XML stuff can pre-empt the development of the above features. But instead, sponsorship would allow us to hire another developer or two to develop this proposed XML functionality. It allows us to develop features that are in demand in parallel with our other priorities. Again, if anyone is interested in this sponsorship, please contact <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Regards, Matt -- For technical support contracts, visit https://order.mysql.com/ __ ___ ___ ____ __ / |/ /_ __/ __/ __ \/ / Mr. Matt Wagner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> / /|_/ / // /\ \/ /_/ / /__ MySQL AB, Coordinator of Development /_/ /_/\_, /___/\___\_\___/ Hopkins, Minnesota USA <___/ www.mysql.com M: +1 952 250 5434 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
