Re: module for XML databases

On Thursday, November 7, 2002, at 04:22 PM, Dave Viner wrote:

Implementation Abstractions I think any PEAR class should aim to implement the XML:DB API. I realize not everyone abides by the api currently, but my understanding of the space is that the database maintainers are trying to migrate to that API. I think it would be very interesting to switch my xml db from xindice to tamino to berkeley db's xmldb without changing my PHP code. (Just as I can switch from Oracle to MySQL now.)

Off-topic, but... This would be an interesting experiment that could lead to strong arguments for XML databases and against relational databases. Currently SQL, the only standard shared between RDBs, is a joke. This causes problems where PEAR::DB should be all we need to write cross-db-compatible PHP software, but instead we need the extra overhead of something like Metabase, which does a good job of abstracting the differences between RDBs, but shouldn't be necessary. On the other hand, XMLDBs (XDBs?) all implement XPath, and usually either XQuery or XUpdate (I haven't seen one implement all three, but I haven't been following too closely). IF XMLDB makers manage to keep to the standards, which were set out in advance, then they'll deserve a serious second-look for this reason when compared with RDBs. Now if only XPath/XQuery/XUpdate/XSLT/Xcetera/Xcetera ;) weren't so obfuscated... Cheers, Lux

As for the interfaces, I use http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpxindice/. The currently available release doesn't work to well, but I modified it to use PHP's internal xmlrpc implementation, and made it object-oriented. Also, I have my own xmlrpc server that handles a bunch of request types that are specific to my application. I've been meaning to clean up the code and contribute it to the project, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. dave -----Original Message----- From: Richard Samar [mailto:email@richard-samar.de] Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 12:26 PM To: pear-dev@lists.php.net; Dave Viner Subject: Re: [PEAR-DEV] module for XML databases Dave Viner wrote:

I've been using Xindice for several months... Xindice has a PHP administrative interface that I redesigned to be more fully functional.

but

I think a pear extension for it would be cool. dave

Could you let us know ...please :-) ...that an integration with abstraction layers of RDBMSs would make no sense? If you share my opinion. And where are these interfaces? I found some not really well documented things on sourceforge, but they didn't work for me. -moh -- PEAR Development Mailing List (http://pear.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PEAR Development Mailing List (http://pear.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php

-- John Luxford Simian Systems _______________________ phone : 204.946.5955 email : lux@simian.ca web : www.simian.ca _______________________ web content management application development consulting and training