| Summary | XSQL combines the power of XML and SQL to provide a language and database independent means to store and retrieve SQL queries and their results. |
| Description |
XSQL is the combination of XML (Extensible Markup Language) and SQL (Structured Query Language) to provide a language and database independent means for storing SQL queries, clauses and query results. XSQL development is still in its infancy and welcomes suggestions for improvement (especially in the form of patches). Currently, the XSQL project has a DTD (Document Type Declaration) to define the structure of an XSQL document and we are currently working on modifing the XML::Generator::DBI Perl module to be able to parse XSQL documents and provide a tree- and event-based API (Application Programming Interface) to their elements. These modifications are being submitted as patches to the modules maintainer, Matt Sergeant. Thus, the source code does not live at this site. It is hoped that XSQL will provide an end-to-end solution for handling SQL in Perl (other languages can be suported if there is interest). Creating XSQL implementations in other languages will allow all databases to support XML without having to alter the database source code in any way. The XSQL implementations can take care of turning XSQL in SQL and turning results into XSQL. |
| Why DTD? | The initial implementation of XSQL will be specified via DTD. As soon as one of the schema-based approaches to XML specification is declared the winner, we will jump on the bandwagon. |
| Mailing List | All discussion of XSQL is being done on the perl-xml mailing list. This mailing list is hosted by the kind folks at ActiveState. |
| Platforms | The DTD will be supported on all platforms and the Perl module will be supported on all platforms that support Perl and its XML modules. |
XSQL is being developed on Debian GNU/Linux. This entire project, including its web site, ftp site, bug tracking, and CVS repository is being hosted by SourceForge.