CHAPTER 13

XML: Extensible Markup Language

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Introduction
 Databases function as data sources for Web
applications
 HTML
 Used in static Web pages
 XML, JSON
 Self-describing documents
 Dynamic Web pages
 Chapter focus: XML data model and languages

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 2

13.1 Structured, Semistructured, and
Unstructured Data
 Structured data
 Stored in relational database
 Semistructured data
 Not all data has identical structure
 Schema information mixed in
 Self-describing
 Directed graph model
 Unstructured data
 Limited data type indication
 Example: Web pages in HTML
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 3
Directed Graph Model for
Semistructured Data

Figure 13.1 Representing semistructured data as a graph

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13-4
Structured, Semistructured, and
Unstructured Data (cont’d.)
 HTML uses predefined tags
 Document header
 Script functions, formatting styles
 Body
 Table tags
 Attributes
 Large number of predefined tags
 XHTML
 Extends tags for different applications

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 5

13.2 XML Hierarchical (Tree) Data
Model
 Basic object: XML document
 Element
 Simple
 Complex
 Schema document defines element names
 Attribute
 Document types
 Data-centric
 Document-centric
 Hybrid
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 6
13.3 XML Documents, DTD, and
XML Schema
 Conditions for well-formed XML documents
 Begins with XML declaration
 Syntactically correct
 Valid
 Must follow a particular schema

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 7

XML Documents, DTD, and XML
Schema (cont’d.)
 Notation for specifying elements
 elementname* indicates optional multivalued
(repeating) element
 elementname+ indicates required multivalued
(repeating) element
 elementname? indicates optional single-valued
(non-repeating) element
 elementname indicates required single-valued
(non-repeating) element

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 8

XML Documents, DTD, and XML
Schema (cont’d.)
 Notation for specifying elements (cont’d.)
 Type specified by parentheses following the
element name
 !ATTLIST used to specify attributes within the
element
 Parentheses can be nested when specifying
elements
 Bar symbol (e1|e2) indicates either e1 or e2 can
appear in the document

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 9

XML Documents, DTD, and XML
Schema (cont’d.)

Figure 13.4(a) An XML DTD file called ‘Projects’

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13-10
XML Schema
 XML schema language
 Specifies document structure
 Same syntax rules as XML documents
 Elements, attributes, keys, references, and
identifiers
 Example: Figure 13.5 in the text

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 11

XML Schema (cont’d.)
 XML namespace
 Defines set of commands that can be used
 Annotations, documentation, and language used
 Elements and types
 Root element
 First-level elements
 Specifying element type and min and max
occurrences

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 12

XML Schema (cont’d.)
 Keys
 Constraints that correspond to relational database
 Primary key
 Foreign key
 Complex elements
 xsd:complexType
 Composite (compound) attributes

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 13

13.4 Storing and Extracting XML
Documents from Databases
 Use file system or DBMS to store documents as
text
 Use DBMS to store document contents as data
elements
 Design specialized system to store XML data
 Create or publish custom XML documents from
preexisting relational databases
 This approach explored further in 13.6

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 14

13.5 XML Languages
 Query language standards
 XPath
 XQuery
 Specifying XPath expressions in XML
 Returns sequence of items satisfying certain
pattern
 Values, elements, or attributes
 Qualifier conditions
 Separators
 Single slash / or double slash //

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 15

XPath (cont’d.)
 Example
 For COMPANY.XML document stored at location
www.company.com/info.XML
 doc(www.company.com/infor.XML)/company
returns company root node and all descendant
nodes

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 16

XPath (cont’d.)

Figure 13.6 Some examples of XPath expressions on XML

documents that follow the XML schema file company in Figure13.5.

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13-17

XQuery: Specifying Queries in XML
 FLWOR expression

 Variables preceded with $

 For assigns variable to a range
 Where specifies additional conditions
 Order by specifies order of result elements
 Return specifies elements for retrieval
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 18
XQuery: Specifying Queries in XML
 Example

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 19

Other Languages and Protocols
Related to XML
 Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL)
 Extensible Stylesheet Language for
Transformations (XSLT)
 Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
 Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
 Resource Description Framework (RDF)

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 20

13.6 Extracting XML Documents from
Relational Databases
 XML uses hierarchical (tree) model
 Common database model is flat relational
database
 Conceptually represent using ER schema
 University example (follows)
 Choices for root: course, student, section

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 21

University Example

Figure 13.8 An ER schema diagram for a simplified UNIVERSITY database

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 22
University Example (cont’d.)

Figure 13.9 Subset of the UNIVERSITY database schema needed for

XML document extraction

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 23

University Example (cont’d.)

Figure 13.10 Hierarchical (tree) view with ‘COURSE’ as the root

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 24

University Example (cont’d.)

Figure 13.11 XML schema with ‘COURSE’ as the root

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 25
University Example (cont’d.)

Figure 13.12 Hierarchical (tree) view with ‘STUDENT’ as the root

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 26

University Example (cont’d.)

Figure 13.13 XML schema document with ‘STUDENT’ as the root

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 27

Breaking Cycles to Convert Graphs
into Trees

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 28

Other Steps for Extracting XML
Documents from Databases
 Create SQL query to extract desired information
 Execute the query
 Restructure from flat to tree structure
 Customize query to select single or multiple
objects into the document

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 29

13.7 XML/SQL: SQL Functions for
Creating XML Data
 XMLELEMENT
 Specifies tag (element) name that will appear in
XML result
 XMLFOREST
 Specifies multiple element names
 XMLAGG
 Aggregate several elements
 XMLROOT
 Selected elements formatted as XML document
with single root element
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 30
XML/SQL: SQL Functions for
Creating XML Data (cont’d.)
 XMLATTRIBUTES
 Creates attributes for the elements of the XML
result
 Example: create XML element containing the
EMPLOYEE lastname for the employee with SSN
123456789

 Result:
Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 31
Employee Example (Query 2)
 To retrieve multiple columns for a single row:

 Result:

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 32

Employee Example (Query 3)
 To create XML document with last name, first
name, and salary of employees from Dept. 4:

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 33

Employee Example (Query 3 cont’d.)
 Result:

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 34

13.8 Summary
 Structured, semistructured, and unstructured data
 Hierarchical data model of XML standard
 Languages for specifying structure
 XML DTD and XML schema
 Approaches for storing XML documents
 XPath and XQuery languages
 Mapping issues
 SQL/XML allows formatting query results as XML
data

Copyright © 2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 13- 35