Re: efficient XML

[Betty Harvey <ebxml@eccnet.eccnet.com>]

<Matt>

> Hierarchy makes sense, recursion doesn't.  Recursion often causes more 
> memory to be used during a parse because information relating to an 
> element's extended family needs to be kept.  Of course, a hierarchy can be 
> recursive, which is good for a DOM-based approach (finding the value of an 
> element in a logical order), but it is less useful to an event based parser.
</Matt>

<Betty>
	Recursion is useful in lots of applications. If you look at a
comprehensive parts catalog, where you have a component that has attaching
parts which have attaching parts.  You want to model the component and
allow the user to drill-down to the necessary part.  You cannot
semantically identify the levels of attaching parts.  XML provides
this facility very nicely.  

	I believe catalogs are an important issue but too early for
ebXML to deal with.

	I have been written DTDs for both X12 and EDIFACT applications.
Too many levels of hierarchy is not going to be the problem.  The problem
will be educating people on the value of hierarchical models.  Most
DTDs being modeled follow the EDI structure - flat file, explicit 
element names, i.e., <CompanyAddressCountry>.

</Betty>

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Betty Harvey                         | Phone: 301-540-8251 FAX: 4268
Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. | 
13017 Wisteria Drive, P.O. Box 333   | 
Germantown, Md.  20874               |
harvey@eccnet.com                    | Washington,DC SGML/XML Users Grp
URL:  http://www.eccnet.com          | http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug/
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