Declarative XML Update Language Based on a Higher Data Model

Abstract

With the extensive use of XML in applications over the Web, how to update XML data is becoming an important issue because the role of XML has expanded beyond traditional applications in which XML is used for information exchange and data representation over the Web. So far, several languages have been proposed for updating XML data, but they are all based on lower, so-called graph-based or tree-based data models. Update requests are thus expressed in a nonintuitive and unnatural way and update statements are too complicated to comprehend. This paper presents a novel declarative XML update language which is an extension of the XML-RL query language. Compared with other existing XML update languages, it has the following features. First, it is the only XML data manipulation language based on a higher data model. Second, this language can express complex update requests at multiple levels in a hierarchy in a simple and flat way. Third, this language directly supports the functionality of updating complex objects while all other update languages do not support these operations. Lastly, most of existing languages use rename to modify attribute and element names, which is a different way from updates on value. The proposed language modifies tag names, values, and objects in a unified way by the introduction of three kinds of logical binding variables: object variables, value variables, and name variables.