ShreX: A Generic Middleware for Shredding and Querying XML in
Relational Databases
Introduction
XML is becoming the predominant data exchange format in a variety of
application
domains ( supply-chain, scientific data processing, telecommunication
infrastructure).
By relying on relational storage, XML developers can benefit from a
complete
set of data management services and from the highly optimized
relational
query processors. In order to store XML data in a RDBMS, it is
necessary
first that an XML-to-relational mapping be defined. Once a
mapping
is selected, XML documents must be appropriately shredded and loaded
into
the database. Finally, queries over the XML documents must be
translated
into SQL queries over the mapped relations.
ShreX provides a generic mechanism for specifying mappings,
shredding
and querying XML documents. The shredding component accepts as
inputs an annotated XML Schema and
XML
documents, and outputs CREATE TABLE statements, and tuples to
populate
the tables. The system provides a point-and-click (Java-based)
GUI
to help users perform storage operations and define mappings. The
GUI shows visually the correspondence between the XML schema
elements
and
their counterparts in generated relational schema.
ShreX can be used with virtually any relational database. The
system was written in Java. Xerces is used to parse and shred XML
documents. Shrex has been tested with DB2 and MySQL.
Publications
Download
- Download shrex.zip
- Enter your install directory (cd $install_dir$), and expand the
zip
file
(unzip xs.zip)
- Follow the Readme file in the expanded directory.
People
This project is currently funded by the National Science Foundation grant
number IIS-0534628.
Last modified: Feb 7, 2007