Penn Database Research Group: Semistructured data and XML

Semantics-added XML Exchange

NSF IDM, PI Susan B. Davidson

Executive Summary

Data is increasingly shared using XML and various specialized formats for exchange are being defined by data-type descriptors (DTDs) or an XML schema. However, agreeing to use XML and a specific DTD does not solve the data exchange problem by itself. Exporters must map their data into the DTD exchange format, and importers of data must again map from the DTD exchange format into some local format for data storage. Thus data exchange is inextricably tied up with writing mappings (or transformations) between data formats. Clearly, the mapping must be guided by an understanding of the semantics of the data or errors may occur when the data transformation is performed.

The goal of this project is to develop general techniques to detect semantic conflicts in these mappings, and thus to avoid failures when data is actually exchanged. The types of semantic constraints considered include keys, foreign keys, and cardinality constraints. Of particular interest are problems of mapping between XML and relational formats, and of mapping between object layers (of interest for groups that provide object layers over their relational databases).

Project Members

Susan Davidson Val Tannen Vanessa Braganholo Carmem Hara

Publications

From XML View Updates to Relational View Updates: old solutions to a new problem [abstract] [.pdf] .bib
International Conference on Very Large Databases (VLDB) (2004)
Vanessa Braganholo Susan Davidson Carlos Heuser
Propagating XML View Updates to a Relational Database [abstract] [.pdf] .bib
Technical Report RP-341 (2004)
Vanessa Braganholo Susan Davidson Carlos Heuser