Mapping rules to convert from ODL to XML-SCHEMA

Abstract

As new standards for technology specifications related to XML are unveiled, and stable tools to implement them become available, the widespread usage of XML as a universal format for data exchange between heterogeneous systems (using the Internet), will increasingly become a reality. Therefore, in order to deal efficiently with the large amounts of XML data that will be generated in the near future it is imperative to find efficient alternatives for the storage and management of this special kind of data. For that matter, object-oriented databases seem to be a good alternative. We begin with an analysis of the different alternatives available to store and manage XML data. After that, we concentrate our attention on the object-oriented (OO) database approach and, in that context, we present a first set of rules that allow the translation from a simple database schema specified in ODL (Object Definition Language) into a schema specified in XML-SCHEMA. In the near future we intend not only to expand this set with new rules that will handle other, more complex, OO modeling constructs, but also to create another set of transformation rules to work the other way round (i.e. from XML-SCHEMA to ODL). Our aim is to cover all the possible modeling situations one may come across in OO database schemas specified in ODL.