NYCPHP Meetup

[Tim Gales]

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