Data on the Web: From Relations to Semistructured Data and XML (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)

Aimed at readers already familiar with database concepts, the book includes little introductory material. It quickly lays out the concepts of self-describing semi-structured data and how XML fits into this approach to data representation. The discussion deals with XML as a data transfer mechanism and not a presentation language. While there is a quick explanation of DTDs, Xlink, and XPointer, readers should be fairly familiar with XML before approaching this advanced title.

The meat of the book revolves around query languages for XML. The authors present XML-QL and XSL in depth as examples. Then they move into much more advanced concepts such as schema formalisms, path constraints, and storage architectures. The book wraps up with a look at Lore and Strudel--two real-world systems that work with semi-structured data. Because of its intensive study of database and query theory, this textbook isn't for the ordinary Web developer. If data architectures are your expertise, however, Data on the Web may open new design doors. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: Object database models, basic XML syntax, UnQL, XML-QL, XSL, StruQL, schema formalisms, extracting schemas from queries, semistructured data servers, Lore, Strudel, and XML-based database products.

Product Description

The Web is causing a revolution in how we represent, retrieve, and process information Its growth has given us a universally accessible database-but in the form of a largely unorganized collection of documents. This is changing, thanks to the simultaneous emergence of new ways of representing data: from within the Web community, XML; and from within the database community, semistructured data. The convergence of these two approaches has rendered them nearly identical. Now, there is a concerted effort to develop effective techniques for retrieving and processing both kinds of data.

Data on the Web is the only comprehensive, up-to-date examination of these rapidly evolving retrieval and processing strategies, which are of critical importance for almost all Web- and data-intensive enterprises. This book offers detailed solutions to a wide range of practical problems while equipping you with a keen understanding of the fundamental issues-including data models, query languages, and schemas-involved in their design, implementation, and optimization. You'll find it to be compelling reading, whether your interest is that of a practitioner involved in a database-driven Web enterprise or a researcher in computer science or related field.

* Provides an in-depth look at XML and other technologies for publishing structured documents on the Web.
* Examines recently developed methods for querying and updating structured Web documents and semistructured data, including XML-QL and XSL.
* Looks deeper into the convergence of Web and database approaches to semistructured data presentation and querying.
* Details practical examples of how these techniques are already being applied-and how they will be used in the near future.
* Teaches sound techniques for writing queries over Web data, describing loose schemas over partially structured data, and implementing and optimizing queries on semistructured data.

One of my main beefs with the book is that it does not really say anything about what XML databases might look like in practice. This is a tall and perhaps unfair order, since we don't yet have standards for XML schemas and query languages. But I have yet to see XML database proponents provide a clear and convincing explanation of why XML is going to be a way to structure stored data as well as a way of transmitting and reformatting data.


This Book is Aimed at a Limited Audience   January 31, 2000
 13 out of 22 found this review helpful

I should have listened to "this textbook isn't for the ordinary Web developer", not "this book is a must for all people interested in XML!" The book is quite academic. It presents a formalism for describing semi-structured data and queries on those data, then illustrates how XML, XML-QL, XSL, etc can be understood in terms of that formalism. I am not sure who would find this useful -- perhaps the people who are working on new extensions to XML itself? Or a person who is designing parsers? Probably not a person who is just trying to use XML.