Re: XML

[Joel Cochran <joelcochran@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/11/05, Bob Cozzi <cozzi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Storing an entire database in XML or translating and then transmitting a
> multi-million record file is NOT what XML was intended to be used for. It
> looks to me like it was intended to allow you to ready about a "page" of
> data for transmission or to be displayed (via a browser). It does that
> wonderfully.
>

I can't agree more. One of my current projects is to replicate iSeries data
to a Pocket PC application. At first, we were using the .NET DataSet
WriteXML() to create an XML file, then we would physically move that file to
the device, then a device program would use ReadXML() to read the data into
its DataSet object.

What we quickly learned was that even for small numbers of records, say only
a few hundred, the XML files were inordinately large, and the time it took
the program to read them into a dataset was terrible. Since the program (at
the time) was using the DataSet to read the records and INSERT them into an
SQLCE2.0 database, I replaced the XML file with a text file containing just
the INSERT statements themselves. The resulting files were much much smaller
and performance was at least ten times better.

Of course, that project has moved well beyond that stage, and now we have
.NET programs reading/writing directly to the handhelkd database (which is
the bee's knees), but it definitely proved to me that XML is no good for
real-time processing of chunks of records.

--
Joel Cochran