Posted by ReGenesis0 on 09/07/06 13:55

Tony Marston wrote:

> The tools for manipulating XML are supposed to be better in PHP 5 than PHP
> 4, but the whole pointof XML is *not* to be manipulated, simply written by
> one process and read by another process. It is used to exchange data between
> different processes, not to provide a storage mechanism as a replacement to
> an SQL database.

See, I'd be a crumudgen and say- "The point of XML is to store your
date IN and XML string in a field in a sql database. Certain key
values like a date and ID will remain as seperate db-fields, but for
the MSOT part, it's a lump of xml code."
The advantage here, if you want to change the type of date you're
storing, or if the type just varies a lot, (say if you have 16
different types of content_types all with different sub-fields you want
to sore in the same database) You dont' have to go back and re-work
your databse queries. It's a standard query. "Go and get the xml code
nugget, chuck it bodily at a xsl sheet. The XSL stylesheet will treat
it appropriately based on the content_type attribute in the base tag."

Searchability/queryabnility goes all the hell udner this system, but
flexability and expandability goes way, way up. It's inappropriate for
some applications, but very appropriae for many others.
But, this presupposes the ability to manipulate complicated nested xml
files, (largely from a form handling standpoint.)

(Storing XML in a text field sounds back-assward, but I've seen this
basis system in action on a proprietary internal system, it works very,
very well, and I WANT that level of flexability.)

Some meditation on the issues involved has me thinkign that basically
what I need is a simpler way of manipulating things in memory.

I'd been avoiding simpleXML in favor od DOM-based solutions on the
premsie that DOM is the better/'correct' way of doign things, but the
more I look, it seems like the itneroperability of dom/simpleXML simly
BEGS for me to manipulate thing in simplexml, and then just conver them
back for xsl interpretation.
(I'd been thinking of simple XML as a seperate 'dumbed-down'
implemantation, but it starting to look more sideways of DOM, liek
theyr'e seperate tools meant to be used together for their strengths.)

IS SimpleXML what I'm looking for? (Basically, I'm giving you an
opportunity to say something bad about it.)

-Derik

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