Tractable XML data exchange via relations

Abstract

We consider data exchange for XML documents: given source and target schemas, a mapping between them, and a document conforming to the source schema, construct a target document and answer target queries in a way that is consistent with the source information. The problem has primarily been studied in the relational context, in which data-exchange systems have also been built. Since many XML documents are stored in relations, it is natural to consider using a relational system for XML data exchange. However, there is a complexity mismatch between query answering in relational and in XML data exchange. This indicates that to make the use of relational systems possible, restrictions have to be imposed on XML schemas and mappings, as well as on XML shredding schemes. We isolate a set of five requirements that must be fulfilled in order to have a faithful representation of the XML data-exchange problem by a relational translation. We then demonstrate that these requirements naturally suggest the in-lining technique for data-exchange tasks. Our key contribution is to provide shredding algorithms for schemas, documents, mappings and queries, and demonstrate that they enable us to correctly perform XML data-exchange tasks using a relational system.