Re:XML for databases: a dead idea
by fusiongyro on Tuesday January 15, 2013 @12:52PM
(#5061587)
I should be more clear: XML isn't a good fit for all databases, but it should be understood that if you're mainly storing and querying XML, an XML database ought to be a better choice.
Except where the database is used to index a collection of XML data. E.g. we store dependency graphs (the output of a natural language parser) in an XML database (Berkeley DB XML), which allows us to quickly select a subset of interesting parses using XPath queries.
Sure, we could use a different storage format and query language. But there are good XML databases and XPath is well-known and standardized. The actual XML is normally only touched by machines.