Leigh Dodds writes:
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 09:15:02 -0000 From: Leigh Dodds ldodds@INGENTA.COM To: TDWG-SDD@usobi.org Subject: Re: is there an "xml-include"
At risk of distracting from the discussion at hand:
[...]
Well strictly speaking XML can be used to model/serialise graph structures, so while it is hierarchical, and the syntax does require a single root, there's no reason why this can't become a graph (or other) structure once parsed.
There's been a lot of activity (unsurprisingly) in serialising XML into and out of databases. In general it's not an easy problem to solve, but it can be done.
People interested in how easily it can always be done, but why it is hard to do it well in general, might consult S. Abiteboul, P. Buneman, D. Suciu, "Data on the Web. From Relations to Semistructured Data and XML", Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 2000, especially pp. 172 ff.