Re: module for XML databases

Dave Viner wrote:

Here are my feelings on the subjects that have come up: Integration with RDBMS I think that XML databases are sufficiently different from relational dbs [...]

It is especially hard as it is "rather easy" to switch from an RDBMS to an XDB but the other way it might become hard to map the xml data onto the many many relations one _might_ need.

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.)

Right now I think it is not the best idea, as there are a lot of features to come soon for Xindice. Additionally, Xindice and Tamino both in the new future will support XQuery and I am anxious to know which changes (also for their APIs) this might bring. The XML:DB API is a great idea though. Tamino meanwhile does have a support for that even. I didn't have time to take a look at it yet. - Besides everything though PHP must have a better support for XML in general.

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.

Wow :-) then you didn't do really really much more than I did. I though didn't make anything work but just implemented the XML-RPC interface for PHP. Other possibilities to access Xindice for PHP are not really possible as far as I could find out.

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.

My code needs especially better error handling. And XUpdate is not really working. Could you mail me maybe your code with a small XUpdate example. I really couldn't get that to work. A lot of ppl at the PHP conference though really asked for a PEAR module. That's why I don't want them to wait that long. Maybe even you could give me a hand some time with an XML:DB API implementation? :-) -moh