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Re: xml schema best practices question.. one big xml or lots o

• To: xml-dev@l...,leevi@t...
• Subject: Re: xml schema best practices question.. one big xml or lots of little components?
• From: David Lyon <david.lyon@c...>
• Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2005 18:28:12 -0400
• In-reply-to: <42607B31.2040509@t...>
• References: <42607B31.2040509@t...>
• User-agent: KMail/1.7.1

On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 10:40 pm, Leevi Graham wrote:
> i am attempting to create a business directory with xml as data storage.

Good idea. 

> i wish to create business elements that contain the obvious
> information.. address, contact location etc...

Easy.

> however the business type may change from retail to professional to
> hosplitality....mainly hospitality like pubs and restaraunts..

Of course.

> *lets say i have a business element that is a restaraunt and that
> restauraunt obviously has a menu.. should i include the menu as a child
> element of the business or should i create a seperate xml file called
> menus. 

Best to keep it in the one file.

> Also if I do create a menus.xml file that contains the menus 
> seperatley how will i be able to tell which menu belongs to which
> restaraunt..*

Exactly.

> things to consider my businesses.xml file may eventually contain many
> businesses with many menus....

I Hope so.

We do this for small computer shops all the time. For small businesses, the
files won't usually grow any bigger than 10k. 

For 40,000 product items expect a 1M file, which will compress to about 100k. 
You might encounter that if somebody sells engine parts. 1G files won't 
happen in a small business - or something is very wrong - don't worry.

Also, keep the pictures seperately.

We have our own parsers to process these files, but a similar thing will
work in more traditional xml.

There are other protocols, like ldap and X.400 etc. Which you might want to 
look into as well. But they are probably designed for larger organisations.

An Example:

<PriceList>
  <Vendor Information>
    Our_GTL&="a2zcom@yodaville(nsw-au)"
    Organisation_Name&="a2zcom"
    Address_Line_1&="23 Yoda Ave"
    Suburb_Town&="YodaVille"
    State_Region&="NSW"
    ZIP_Postcode&="2160"
    Country_Code&="AU"
    Email&="sales@a..."
    Telephone&="+612 5555 9966"
    Fax&="+612 5555 8866"
    Profile_Description&=""
    Other_Information&=""
  </Vendor Information>
  <Contact Information>
    <Department>
      Department_Name&="Sales"
      <Contact>
        Name&="Peter Smith"
        Telephone&="02 5555 4445"
        Email&="peter@a..."
      </Contact>
    </Department>
  </Contact Information>
  <Product Information>
      <Display Options>
        YourPrice?=False
        YourPrice.Label&="Trade Price"
      </Display Options>
    <Product Group>
      Group_Description&="Memory & Memory Card"
      <Product Items>
        <Product Item>
         Name&="Product Name"
         List_Price&="Unit Price"
        </Product Item>
        <Product Item>
         Name&="256MB DDR400 PC3200"
         List_Price$=45.00
        </Product Item>
        <Product Item>
         Name&="256MB Kingmax DDR400 PC3200"
         List_Price$=60.00
        </Product Item>
      </Product Items>
    </Product Group>
    <Summary>
      ItemCount#=3
    </Summary>
  </Product Information>
</PriceList>

Best Regards

David

-- 
Computergrid : The ones with the most connections win.

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  • xml schema best practices question.. one big xml or lots of littlecomponents?
    • From: Leevi Graham <leevi@t...>

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