To read this content please select one of the options below:

Preserving conceptual constraints during XML updates

Eric Pardede (Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia)
J. Wendy Rahayu (Department of Computer Science and Computer Engineering, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia)
David Taniar (School of Business Systems, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia)

International Journal of Web Information Systems

ISSN: 1744-0084

Article publication date: 1 May 2005

176

Abstract

Despite the increasing demand for an effective XML document repository, many are still reluctant to store XML documents in their natural tree form. One main reason is the inadequacy of XML query languages to update the tree‐form XML documents. Even though some of the languages have supported minimum update facilities, they do not concern on preserving the documents constraints. The results are updated documents with very low database integrity. In this paper, we propose a methodology to accommodate XML Update without violating the conceptual constraints of the documents. The method takes form as a set of functions that perform checking mechanisms before update operations. In this paper we discuss the conceptual constraints embedded in three different relationship structures: association, aggregation and inheritance relationship. We highlight four constraints related with association relationship (nuber of participants, referential integrity, cardinality, and adhesion), five constraints related with aggregation relationship (cardinality, adhesion, ordering, homogeneity and share‐ability) and two constraints related to inheritance relationship (disjoint and number of super‐class). In addition, a specific constraint, which is collection type of children, will also be discussed. The proposed method can be implemented in different ways, for example in this paper we use XQuery language. Since the XML update requires schema, in this paper we also propose the mapping of the these constraints in the conceptual level to the XML Schema. We use XML Schema for structure validation, even though the algorithm can be used by any schema languages.

Keywords

Citation

Pardede, E., Wendy Rahayu, J. and Taniar, D. (2005), "Preserving conceptual constraints during XML updates", International Journal of Web Information Systems, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 65-82. https://doi.org/10.1108/17440080580000084

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Related articles