Principles of Data Integration

11

XML

As described in the previous chapters of this book, most research on data integration has centered on the relational model. In many ways, the relational model and the datalog query language are the simplest and cleanest formalisms for data and query representation, so many of the fundamental issues were considered first in that setting.

However, as such techniques are adapted to meet real-world needs, they typically get adapted to incorporate XML (or its close cousin JSON¹). For instance, IBM’s Rational Data Architect or Microsoft’s BizTalk Mapper both use XML-centric mappings.

The reason for this is straightforward. XML has become the default format for data export from both database and document sources, and many additional tools have ...