Hi,

> > > Sorry, but I don't think XML really is a data store, despite people's
> > > attempts to bend it into one. It is a data structure convention

intended

> > > for the basis of exchanging data between systems.
> >
> > It's still a datastore, albiet it should be a temporary one.
>
> Its no more a datastore than a TCP/IP packet or a text file, but I can see
> where you are comming from
>
> > Where I think
> > XML is important, is where you need to exchange information, where the
> > format is part of the data. For example I spent a year writing banking
> > interfaces for a payroll timeclock system.
>
> [SNIP]
>
> A (real) example that I have been envolved in, was a finantial system that
> received Tax rate information for a number of different sources. The info
> contained the same data, just in a different order, with different 'field
> names', but all of it was XML. What the system did was just throw the XML
> document at an (Oracle) stored procedure, and the the document was parsed
> within the procedure and the data put in the appropriate tables. No one
> could argue that this could have easily have been done in a separate app,

and

> the data inserted 'normally' into the database, but in this case, by doing

it

> 'in the database', was simpler, and there was less 'external' to maintain.
>
> > That still leaves the question though, how is a database engine supposed

to

> > deal with it?
>
> By exposing a DOM/SAX parser for use in PSQL code.

Perhaps by a "built-in" external function (udf library) that's
always available? Just like "ibudf"?


With regards,

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - the developer tool for InterBase & Firebird
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com

See you at the First European Firebird Conference in May in Fulda, Germany
http://www.firebird-conference.com