XML, etc. [was Re: a grandiose but (hopefully) practical idea]

[Eric Zurcher]

At 17:51 14-03-2001 -0800, Doug Yanega wrote:

>But those barriers are substantial, and exist NOW. I'm working on my
>"insect genera of the world" database NOW, and using state-of-the-art
>database software that CANNOT import or export in XML - and there are many
>people like myself. We can't all be expected to wait several years, nor all
>invest in new software.

Actually I suspect that you CAN import or export from your database to XML
with existing software tools. I've been using a free tool called XML-DBMS
(for details, see http://www.rpbourret.com/xmldbms/index.htm ), which
handles such translations (in both directions) easily. The hardest part is
developing a "map" which is needed to describe the mapping of XML to DB
structures. Once you get the map right, the actual translations are fairly
trivial. XML-DBMS comes in Java and Perl versions (warning - some
programming skills are required), and can cope fairly readily with any
database system that provides JDBC or ODBC drivers.


Eric Zurcher
CSIRO Livestock Industries
Canberra, ACT Australia
E-mail: Eric.Zurcher at pi.csiro.au