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RE: XML-enabled databases, XQuery APIs

• To: "'Bullard, Claude L \(Len\)'" <len.bullard@i...>,"'Michael Rys'" <mrys@m...>,"'Ronald Bourret'" <rpbourret@r...>
• Subject: RE: XML-enabled databases, XQuery APIs
• From: "Michael Kay" <mike@s...>
• Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 19:43:08 +0100
• Cc: <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE07206E4E@h...>
• Thread-index: AcVEPecMrAL8Ui2YQYygksYyhH5iYgABxGaQ

> 
> 1)  The effect of the binary is to increase the parser space. 
> The relational system doesn't care because it uses an internal 
> representation.
> 
> However, the binary is reputed to create a faster parse.

I would be very surprised if XML parsing contributes anything noticeable to
the cost of a database load (in shredding mode). Except possibly for a
pathological XML document containing 3 nodes and 3 billion bytes.

I haven't looked at the latest products from MS or Oracle, but my experience
of database loading with complex data and a realistic level of indexing is
that it's a couple of orders of magnitude slower than XML parsing. You can
improve that with a custom loader that bypasses SQL and does a lot of
heavy-duty sorting and merging to minimize head movement on the disk (does
anyone still do that?), but I think it's still true that the parsing cost is
immaterial.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/

• References:
  • RE: XML-enabled databases, XQuery APIs
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>

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