XML Data Management: Native XML and XML-Enabled Database Systems

19.3. Databases for Storing XML Documents

Although XML documents are text only and thus can easily be stored in files, they are so-called semi-structured data, which need to be accessed via the structure. (Semi-structured data have been intensively studied by Abiteboul et al. (Abiteboul et al. 2000)). It is therefore worthwhile to draw upon database technologies for their storage and retrieval. In doing so, the XML document structure has to be mapped to the database schema, which is required by every database management system. The structure of XML documents does not correspond to any schema model of the widely used database approaches and therefore has led, on the one hand, to extensive studies of the necessary transformation and, on the other ...