Maintaining a relational database and its schema in response to a stream of XML messages based on one or more arbitrary and evolving XML schemas

摘要

A facility for representing in a relational database informational content of the series of tag-language messages is described. The facility reads an arbitrary number of the tags contained by the series of messages. For each read tag, the facility determines a path for the tag, the name of a relational table assigned to the path, values specified for the tag and/or attributes of the tag, in the name of columns of relational tables assigned to the tag and/or tag attribute values. After doing this processing, the facility updates the relational database so that and it includes all of the assigned relational tables and a relational table columns, and populates the value specified for the tags and/or attributes of tags to the relational database.

主权项

1. A method for representing informational content of a stream of tag-language messages, the method comprising:
from each of a plurality of tag-language messages of a stream of tag-language messages, processing a plurality of open tags, wherein each open tag corresponds to an element in the corresponding tag-language message; and wherein the stream of tag-language messages comprises a first message and a second message with the first message having a first hierarchical format and the second message having a second hierarchical format that is different than the first hierarchical format; in response to processing the first message, automatically creating a relational table based on the processed first message and storing the relational table in a relational database; determining that the second hierarchal format comprises a hierarchical format (a) not previously processed, (b) not previously associated with the relational table stored in the relational database, and (c) not previously associated with a previously-created data column of the relational table; and in response to determining that the second hierarchal format comprises a hierarchical format (a) not previously processed, (b) not previously associated with the relational table stored in the relational database, and (c) not previously associated with the previously-created data column of the relational table, automatically creating at least one new data column in the relational table, wherein the at least one new data column is configured to correspond to at least one tag from the second tag-language message, and wherein the automatically creating at least one new data column is independent of user interactions and independent of receiving a document that includes instructions to create at least one new data column in the relational table.