Interstage Shunsaku Data Manager Application Development Guide - Microsoft(R) Windows(R) 2000/ Microsoft(R) Windows Server(TM) 2003 - - UNIX -

12.2.2 Determine the Structure of the XML Documents

To specify the structure of the XML documents that is to be output to a text file, the following information must be determined:

• The number of XML document items
• Whether to output an XML declaration
• The hierarchical relationship between the XML documents
• The correspondence between the columns in the results table and the XML documents
• The elements of the XML documents
• The attributes of the XML documents

• Hierarchical structure of XML documents

XML documents consist of a single root element under which sub-elements and element data exist. These elements are all related and their relationships can be expressed as a parent-child relationship or a sibling relationship, etc.

In a hierarchical relationship, higher-level tags are 'parents' and lower-level tags are 'children'. Elements on the same level that possess the same parent are 'siblings'.

If some simple XML documents were represented as a hierarchical relationship, it could be expressed as shown in the following figure.

[Figure 12-3 Sample of Hierarchical Structure of XML Documents]

• Associating parent and child elements

According to the mapping rules, elements within the XML documents to be output that possess element data are referred to as "column elements" and elements that possess other elements are referred to as "parent elements".

In the following figure, 'PERSON' and 'DETAIL' are parent elements, and the five subordinate elements 'NUM', 'NAME', 'JOB', 'LOCNUM' and 'LOC' are column elements.

[Figure 12-4 Example of Parent Elements and Column Elements]

Figure 12-5 Hierarchy of Parent Elements and Column Elements from Previous Example