Avoiding data replication in XML

[0ddball]

Hi folks. I'm trying to structure an XML document in the most efficient way possible and I have come accross a question I think I need answering. Here is my document structure - sorry no schema yet, this is an XLM doodle if you will.

<toolAdmin>
	<users>
		<user name="oddball">
			<tool name="demoTool">
				<linkTitle>TekTips Demo Data</linkTitle>
				<linkTarget>~/TekTips/demo.aspx</linkTarget>
				<data id="var1">lemon</data>
				<data id="var2">lime</data>
				<data ... /data>
			</tool>
			<tool ... /tool>
		</user>
		<user name="foobar">
			<tool name="demoTool">
				<linkTitle>TekTips Demo Data</linkTitle>
				<linkTarget>~/TekTips/demo.aspx</linkTarget>
				<data id="var1">lemon</data>
				<data id="var2">lime</data>
			</tool>
			<tool ... /tool>
		</user>
	</users>
	<roles .../*Same as users*/... /roles>
</toolAdmin>

The problem is I could have five roles and thirty users all using the Demo Tool with the same data and the same title and link. I don't want to have to replicate this data over and over again and I DO want to cascade updates to the data.

Is this where something like XPath would come in? I'm reading and writing this document with C# and the .NET 2.0 framework so solutions need to be implementable in said enviroment (prefereably without having to chase down custom libraries.

The easyest solution is to use a primary/foreign key system and two documents (tools.xml and access.xml, say). I just seem to feel that there should be a more graceful way of pulling that off in XML

Thanks for any time you give me


Yet another unchecked rambling brought to you by:
Oddball

 

[tsuji]

I'm sure this has been weighted pros & cons.
[tt]
<toolAdmin>
<tools>
<tool name="demoTool">
<linkTitle>TekTips Demo Data</linkTitle>
<linkTarget>~/TekTips/demo.aspx</linkTarget>
<data id="var1">lemon</data>
<data id="var2">lime</data>
</tool>
<tool name="demoTool2">
<etc>...</etc>
</tool>
<etc>...</etc>
</tools>
<users>
<user name="oddball">
<tool name="demoTool" />
<tool name="demoTool3" />
<tool name="etc..." />
</user>
<user name="foobar">
<tool name="demoTool" />
<tool name="demoTool2" />
<tool name="etc..." />
</user>
<etc>...</etc>
</users>
<roles>
<etc>...</etc>
</roles>
</toolAdmin>
[/tt]
Not very inventive. Just for the sake of responding.

 

[0ddball]

That's the scheme I'm using at the moment. Guess you just confirmed that I'm doing it this way.

*wonders off to write some more XML handling code*


Yet another unchecked rambling brought to you by:
Oddball

 

[JontyMC]

Why use XML in the first place?

XML is for structured data, normally for interoperability between disparate systems.

This seems far more suited to a relational database.

Jon

"I don't regret this, but I both rue and lament it.

 

[0ddball]

It's part of a hunk of data that is serialised backwards and forwards between a remote client and the server.

The actual file won't change that often and the tools are, as you say, detailed in a MySql database - as are the users and stuff.

I was just after the best way to represent this structure in an XML format.


Yet another unchecked rambling brought to you by:
Oddball