If your data is in XML, then unless it is trivially small, I would recommend
using an XML database to store it, to save the effort of converting it to
tables and back again. You can then use XQuery to query it. I would also
recommend adding XSLT to the mix, to control the rendition of the results -
although XQuery can do this in principle, it is best to separate data access
from presentation in your application architecture.
You can write a web page that accepts parameters from an HTML form and
invokes the query using many different technologies, you have mentioned PHP
but Java would work equally well. If you want a higher-level approach, use
XForms, which will submit the data in XML.
A useful technology that ties all these together is Orbeon: it includes an
XForms engine and a pipeline processor capable of invoking XSLT and XQuery
tasks and feeding the results down the pipeline. This enables you to write
the whole application using high-level languages without dropping into
procedural coding.
Regards,
Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
http://twitter.com/michaelhkay
-----Original Message-----
From: Manuel Souto Pico [mailto:m(_dot_)soutopico(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com]
Sent: 30 September 2009 18:08
To: xsl-list(_at_)lists(_dot_)mulberrytech(_dot_)com
Subject: [xsl] Create a web interface to query a XML database
Dear all,
I would like to explore whether XSLT or any other XML-based
language (XQuery, I guess) would provide an alternative way
to create an online dictionary where the user can send
queries to a database and receive an HTML page with the results.
Using a LAMP environment I can create a webpage in PHP that
offers a search box and which, after the query is submitted
to the MySQL database, generates an HTML page with the
results. This[1] is a rudimentary example so you can see
straightaway what I mean (but I'm sure it's clear enough
without examples).
Now I have the term data in one TBX file (which is
XML-based). I could convert that to a MySQL database and
create a PHP-based search interface as I have done in the
past, but I thought perhaps it's worth exploring other ways
of querying the XML document directly.
Well, I just wanted to let you know what I intend to you,
perhaps you can advice me some way to go. Am I on the right
path? Is XSLT/XQuery easier or better than PHP-MySQL if my
data is already in XML format?
Can you suggest some useful resource for this?
My knowledge of XSLT is pretty basic, but with effort,
research and help I normally manage to do what I need.
[1] http://dvtg.msoutopico.es/
My best regards to you.
-
Manuel Souto Pico
Linguistic Services (en/fr/pt/ca > gl/es)
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