Re: How to create a DBMS from scratch?

In article <aog3gt$k1b$1_at_news.ust.hk>, Alan Po <alanpo_at_ust.hk> wrote:
>
>When I am a Bachelor student in University, I have learned the structure
>inside a DBMS. However, do not know anything about the internal structure,
>e.g. the program code of indexing, query and file structure of a database.

H. Garcia-Molina, J. D. Ullman, and J. Widom. Database System Implementation. Prentice Hall, 2000.

>Unfortunately, I am now studying Master course in University and my
>assignment is to build an index file on XML data and design a query
>language on it. But how?

Indexing XML is not just a matter of applying well-known RDBMS techniques and there is a whole body of literature on the specifics of indexing XML. (On its own its already a subject for a PhD) For starters I'd look at:

• DataGuides: Enabling Query Formulation and Optimization in Semistructured Databases (1997), Roy Goldman, Jennifer Widom http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/126680.html
• Index Structures for Path Expressions (1997), Tova Milo, Dan Suciu http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/milo97index.html
• Indexing XML Data with ToXin (2001), Flavio Rizzolo, Alberto Mendelzon http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/rizzolo01indexing.html

The part about "designing" a query language looks a bit strange. There are already standard query languages out there such as XPath and XQuery so it would probably be a good idea to take an easy subset of them.

Good luck,

• Jan Hidders