Using a relational database for scalable XML search

XML is a flexible and powerful tool that enables information and security sharing in heterogeneous environments. Scalable technologies are needed to effectively manage the growing volumes of XML data. A wide variety of methods exist for storing and searching XML data; the two most common techniques are conventional tree-based and relational approaches. Tree-based approaches represent XML as a tree and use indexes and path join algorithms to process queries. In contrast, the relational approach utilizes the power of a mature relational database to store and search XML. This method relationally maps XML queries to SQL and reconstructs the XML from the database results. To date, the limited acceptance of the relational approach to XML processing is due to the need to redesign the relational schema each time a new XML hierarchy is defined. We, in contrast, describe a relational approach that is fixed schema eliminating the need for schema redesign at the expense of potentially longer runt...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: TJS
• Authors: Rebecca Cathey, Steven M. Beitzel, Eric C. Jensen, David A. Grossman, Ophir Frieder
• Keywords: Mature Relational Database, Relational Approach, TJS 2008, XML Data