Relational Databases for Querying XML Documents:  Limitations and Opportunities

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Relational Databases for Querying XML Documents: Limitations and Opportunities (1999)

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by Jayavel Shanmugasundaram , Kristin Tufte , Gang He , Chun Zhang , David DeWitt , Jeffrey Naughton

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477 - 9 self

BibTeX

@MISC{Shanmugasundaram99relationaldatabases,
    author = {Jayavel Shanmugasundaram and Kristin Tufte and Gang He and Chun Zhang and David DeWitt and Jeffrey Naughton},
    title = {    Relational Databases for Querying XML Documents: Limitations and Opportunities},
    year = {1999}
}

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Abstract

XML is fast emerging as the dominant standard for representing data in the World Wide Web. Sophisticated query engines that allow users to effectively tap the data stored in XML documents will be crucial to exploiting the full power of XML. While there has been a great deal of activity recently proposing new semistructured data models and query languages for this purpose, this paper explores the more conservative approach of using traditional relational database engines for processing XML documents conforming to Document Type Descriptors (DTDs). To this end, we have developed algorithms and implemented a prototype system that converts XML documents to relational tuples, translates semi-structured queries over XML documents to SQL queries over tables, and converts the results to XML. We have qualitatively evaluated this approach using several real DTDs drawn from diverse domains. It turns out that the relational approach can handle most (but not all) of the semantics of semi-structured queries over XML data, but is likely to be effective only in some cases. We identify the causes for these limitations and propose certain extensions to the relational

Keyphrases

xml document relational database semi-structured query prototype system dominant standard traditional relational database engine query language data model diverse domain great deal conservative approach xml data sql query full power several real dtds drawn certain extension sophisticated query engine world wide web relational approach document type descriptor relational tuples

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