Re: Two examples of semi structured data.

On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 10:13:59 -0400, Laconic2 wrote:
>
> In what ways do they fail to exemplify semi-structured data? What are
> some features of semi structured data that are obscured rather than
> clarified by the theme of this discussion?

I don't know enough about registries to really comment but I suspect they are rather structured in the sense that the schema is in fact well-known. But if it is possible that different applications are allowed to add their own subtree without any constraints on the structure then it is probably a good example.

The cookies might be a good example if it is possible to query them for certain information without really knowing how the information within them is structured.

The common theme is here that you would like to be able to query and manipulate data that although it has structure in some way this structure is not (or only partially) made explicit.

A nice old paper (IMO) that discusses the main issues can be found here:

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cache/papers/cs/558/http:zSzzSzwww-db.stanford.eduzSzpubzSzpaperszSzicdt97.semistructured.pdf/abiteboul97querying.pdf

• Jan Hidders