XML Path Language

Abstract: The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is a key technology that facilitates both information exchange and e-business transactions. Starting with DB2 UDB Net.Data VI, an application can generate XML documents from SQL queries against DB2 or any ODBC compliant databases. Today DB2 UDB XML Extender not only serves as a repository for both XML documents and their Document Type Definitions (DTDs), but also provides data management functionalities such as data integrity, security, recoverability and manageability. The user has the option to store the entire document as an XML user-defined column or to decompose the document into multiple tables and columns. Fast search via indices is provided for both XML elements and attributes. Section search can be done against the content of the document. Query syntax adheres to W3C standards such as Extensive Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) and XML Path Language (XPath) specifications. The user can retrieve the entire document or extract XML elements and attributes dynamically in an SQL query. In addition, XML Extender provides a stored procedure to generate XML documents from existing data. Together with Net.Data, one can browse the content of the XML documents via the Internet.

Abstract: Methods and systems are provided for mapping markup language data and schema, such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML) data and XML schema, to selected fields (cells, columns, rows) of a spreadsheet application document. An XML schema file is associated with a spreadsheet application document by providing a mechanism of adding the schema definitions to the spreadsheet application document. Furthermore, XML schema constructs such as elements, attributes, and simple content are associated to regions in the spreadsheet application document by providing a tree view structure of a generalized instance of a given XML schema file. A user may drag and drop markup language nodes representing elements, attributes and simple data content, from the tree view structure of the generalized instance of the XML schema file onto a spreadsheet worksheet grid. Once a cell, column or row in worksheet grid accepts the dropped element or attribute, an association is made between the target location in the worksheet grid, and the definition, data type and rules associated with the dropped element or attribute by setting an XML path language (XPATH) marker to point the target location back to the selected element or attribute in the XML schema file. Having all or partially all desired markup language elements or attributes associated with desired target locations in the spreadsheet grid, a general mapping of marked-up locations in the spreadsheet grid and their associated elements and/or attributes in an associated XML schema file is created.

Abstract: The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) was designed to describe the content of a document and its hierarchical structure, and the XML Path language (XPath) is a language for selecting elements from XML documents. There is a close connection between the query processing problem for XPath and the model checking problem for temporal logics. Both boil down to checking which nodes of a graph satisfy a property. We investigate the potential of a technique based on computation tree logic (CTL) model checking for evaluating queries expressed in (a subset of) XPath. To this aim, we isolate a simple fragment of XPath that is naturally embeddable into CTL. We report on experiments based on the model checker NuSMV, and compare our results with alternative academic XPath processors. We comment on the advantages and drawbacks of the application of our model checking-based approach to XPath processing.