Re: Semi-structured data
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 04:55:03 GMT
Message-ID: <HeOCc.106225$Sw.95312_at_attbi_s51>
"Costin Cozianu" <c_cozianu_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:2k180nF16r4j5U1_at_uni-berlin.de...
>
> It means that the system can work with partial knowledge of the whole
> structure.
Wow, that's actually a really useful and interesting definition for the term, certainly the first such I can recall hearing.
For some months now, every time someone uses that term, I ask them what they mean by "semistructured." Generally the get very vague at that point. As near as I can tell, most people use the term "semistructured" to mean data in a tree format; aka XML. When I read for examle this:
" In order to represent data with loosely defined or irregular structure, the semistructured data model has emerged as a dynamically typed data model that allows a "schema-less" description format in which the data is less constrained than is usual in database work."
it just looks to me like people using the term "semistructured" are people who don't understand schemata.
Marshall Received on Fri Jun 25 2004 - 06:55:03 CEST