Creating Reports based on hierarchical XML file

Hi,

We have XML files (and its XSD) that are dump of our tree-like data structure in memory. These XML files may potentially have unlimited levels of nesting because some elements can contain themselves
(recursively defined).

We want to build some reports using some third party reporting tool
(Crystal Report, for example).

The first question is - is there any way for Crystal Reports to process such complicated (some elements have recursive definitions) XML file directly? If not, anyone knows any other reporting tool that can do that job?

The second question is - if we have to develop a small application that converts the XML to dataset, anyone who has done similar thing before can give us some recommendations as to which approach is the easiest to take (Java, .NET, etc.)? I'd appreciate it if someone can point me to some resources to get me started.

Another approach is to convert the hierarchical XML into relational table set and store the data into relational database. In that case, the reporting tool can simply read from the database. I'd appreciate it if someone can let me know if there is any softeware/program that can do the conversion. (I heard that some database server can do the conversion from XML to relational tables, but didn't find anything concrete.)

Any comment/recommendation is appreciated!

Thank you for your help in advance!! Received on Wed Nov 17 2004 - 18:29:45 CST