Semistructured Data and XML

Dan Suciu

The distinguishing feature of semistructured data is that the schema is embedded with the data. The main challenge is to cope with the additional flexibility without sacrificing efficiency. We introduce semistructured data by presenting a syntax and describing the data model. We discuss some query languages designed for semistructured data and address some systems issues, such as storage and XML compression.

Keywords: Massive data sets, Telecommunications, Telephone billing systems, Datastore, I/O.