[ANN] SQLfX Beta

[Lee Fesperman]

I'm pleased to announce the beta availability of SQLfX (SQL for XML).
SQLfX is a brand new paradigm for database access to XML. It uses the
[often unrecognized] hierarchical operations built into SQL92 to bring
power and scalability to XML query and manipulation. SQLfX is a next
generation alternative to complex navigational facilities like XQuery,
XPath and XSLT.

My company (FFE) worked with Advanced Data Access Technologies, Inc.
to implement a beta middleware version of SQLfX with a GUI front-end.
The SQLfX Beta is available for free download and evaluation at their
site:

http://www.adatinc.com/aboutthissite/sqlfxprdownload.html

 

[Lew]

I'm pleased to announce the beta availability of SQLfX (SQL for XML).
SQLfX is a brand new paradigm for database access to XML. It uses the
[often unrecognized] hierarchical operations built into SQL92 to bring
power and scalability to XML query and manipulation. SQLfX is a next
generation alternative to complex navigational facilities like XQuery,
XPath and XSLT.

My company (FFE) worked with Advanced Data Access Technologies, Inc.
to implement a beta middleware version of SQLfX with a GUI front-end.
The SQLfX Beta is available for free download and evaluation at their
site:

http://www.adatinc.com/aboutthissite/sqlfxprdownload.html

Looks interesting, based on a cursory glance.

Thank you for cross-posting instead of multi-posting.

Nice-looking web site, too.

 

[Roedy Green]

I'm pleased to announce the beta availability of SQLfX (SQL for XML).
SQLfX is a brand new paradigm for database access to XML. It uses the
[often unrecognized] hierarchical operations built into SQL92 to bring
power and scalability to XML query and manipulation. SQLfX is a next
generation alternative to complex navigational facilities like XQuery,
XPath and XSLT.

Could you talk a bit about that. I thought of SQL as rows and column,
no hierarchy, no nesting, no point in XML.

 

[Lee Fesperman]

I'm pleased to announce the beta availability of SQLfX (SQL for XML).
SQLfX is a brand new paradigm for database access to XML. It uses the
[often unrecognized] hierarchical operations built into SQL92 to bring
power and scalability to XML query and manipulation. SQLfX is a next
generation alternative to complex navigational facilities like XQuery,
XPath and XSLT.

Could you talk a bit about that. I thought of SQL as rows and column,
no hierarchy, no nesting, no point in XML.

Sure. A table in SQL does consist of rows and columns, but SQL tables
can be linked to each other, normally using Primary Key (PK) to
Foreign Key (FK) relationships. A PK to FK link can model a One to
Many (1:M) relationship. 1:M is a hierarchical link, used to create
nested tree structures like XML. Using self-references and recursive
operators, SQL can nest hierarchical trees inside a single table. PK
to FK links can also be used for more complex 'network' structures.

Conceptually, one can model an XML element as a SQL table with XML
attributes as SQL columns and model nested elements as linked tables.
When done physically, this is known as shredding an XML document.

SQLfX leverages this conceptual view and the hierarchical operators
already in Standard SQL to provide a powerful and intuitive interface
for querying and transforming XML. In the beta, SQLfx does use
physical shredding of XML. In the next phase, SQLfX will implement a
high-performance alternative to shredding. This is a change to
internal implementations and doesn't affect the external interface or
language.

 

[Lew]

Sure. A table in SQL does consist of rows and columns, but SQL tables
can be linked to each other, normally using Primary Key (PK) to
Foreign Key (FK) relationships. A PK to FK link can model a One to
Many (1:M) relationship. 1:M is a hierarchical link, used to create
nested tree structures like XML. Using self-references and recursive
operators, SQL can nest hierarchical trees inside a single table. PK
to FK links can also be used for more complex 'network' structures.

Conceptually, one can model an XML element as a SQL table with XML
attributes as SQL columns and model nested elements as linked tables.
When done physically, this is known as shredding an XML document.

But what about set operations? How can you support those in XMLese?

 

[Lee Fesperman]

SQLfX models hierarchical structures as linked sets. The SQLfX
language is an elaboration of Standard SQL oriented to processing and
manipulating hierarchical structures. Currently, it uses a SQL DBMS as
its engine to process the sets.