XML Features of Oracle 8i and 9i (6/7) - exploring XML

XML Features of Oracle 8i and 9i

XML Transviewer Java Beans

Oracle XML Transviewer Java Beans allow basic viewing and transformation of XML documents for use in an IDE e.g Oracle JDeveloper.

DOM Builder Bean. Wraps the Java XML (DOM) parser with a bean interface for parsing XML files.
XML Source Viewer Bean. Provides viewing of XML and XSL files with colour syntax highlighting
XML Tree Viewer Bean. Displays XML documents in tree form with the ability to expand and collapse nodes.
XSL Transformer Bean. Bean interface for XSLT Processor.

interMedia text

This is not specifically an XML tool, but an Oracle application for doing complex text searches on documents stored in the database as BLOBs, or as files or referenced by URL. However, XML as text is searchable using interMedia. The interMedia searching language is similar to SQL:

select document_id from my_table where contains (my_column,'light fittings') > 0

However, the application itself is complicated to set up and administer, because special indexes must be created on each tag/attribute where the search is to be performed, and this is a complex process in itself:

BEGIN
  Ctx_Ddl.Drop_Section_Group(
    group_name => 'my_section_group');
END;
/
BEGIN
  Ctx_Ddl.Create_Section_Group(
    group_name => 'my_section_group',
    group_type => 'xml_section_group');
  Ctx_Ddl.Add_Field_Section(
    group_name =>'my_section_group',
    section_name =>'author',
    tag =>'author');
  Ctx_Ddl.Add_Field_Section(
    group_name =>'my_section_group',
    section_name =>'document',
    tag =>'document');
  ...
END;
/
CREATE INDEX my_index ON my_table ( my_column ) INDEXTYPE IS Ctxsys.Context
PARAMETERS ( 'SECTION GROUP my_section_group' );

Enhancements in Oracle 9i

The same 8i XML tools/XDK's are also provided with 9i, but there are two new XML features:

An XML datatype (XMLType). This can be used for both XML or non-XML data. However, in the latter case there is a feature to create an XML view of the data.
New SQL operators allow for direct generation of XML from other data types.

And now, the end is near...

Produced by Michael Claßen

URL: https://www.webreference.com/xml/column81/6.html
Created: May 10, 2003
Revised: May 10, 2003

XML Features of Oracle 8i and 9i (6/7) - exploring XML