Brian D. wrote:
[snip]
That made me wonder if most people completely missed the point. The
application of XML databases is, I think, in situations where
structure is either not applicable or not possible...
XML documents are structured.
Look up well-formed XML and valid XML.
..Trying to stamp a
structure on an XML database (from what I can gather) destroys one of
the primary reasons for employing the technology. XML is flexible.
That's what makes it different...
No need to 'stamp' a structure on XML records --
they've already got one (see above)
... If you shoehorn an XML database into
what Rusty called a "rectangular" format, why not just continue using
relational databases?
XML documents (and hence XML Databases) are not inherently
less structured or more capable of handling unstructured
data than a relational data model.
(Consider, for example, a database with a text field which
can be text-indexed like you can create in MySQL.
That sort of a text field doesn't impose much structure
on the data.)
A relational schema can be as structured or unstructured
as you create it to be -- same goes for DTD's and XSD's.
What degree of structure you need, I would venture to say,
is determined by your retrieval needs.
If you really want even less structure -- throw all
your data into text files and 'grep' for your
information.
--
T. Gales & Associates
'Helping People Connect with Technology'
http://www.tgaconnect.com
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