Storing-Updating and Querying Multidimensional XML Documents using Relational Databases

Nikolaos Fousteris, Yannis Stavrakas, Manolis Gergatsoulis

Abstract: In Web applications it is often required to manipulate information of semistructured nature, which may present variations according to different circumstances. Multidimensional XML (MXML) is an extension of XML suitable for representing data that assume different facets, having different value and structure, under different contexts. Following previous work on storing XML in relational databases, we present results of our ongoing research on storing, querying and updating MXML documents using relational databases. First we consider alternative schemas for representing MXML in RDBs. Then we introduce MXPath, an extension of XPath for MXML, and give an intuition of how MXPath queries can be translated into SQL queries. Finally we consider the problem of updating MXML by introducing a number of basic update operations.