XML Connection to MySQL

[raymundo]

I have done a lot of searching and can not find XML and MySQL in the same sentance.&nbsp;&nbsp;Is their a way for an XML document to use MySQL as its data source?<br><br>Any references, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[palbano]

Dear raymundo,<br><br>&gt; Is their a way for an XML document to use MySQL as its data source?<br><br>Well no, not exactly, XML documents are a 'data source', they don't 'use' one. But the rows from MySQL could easily be used to generate XML documents. Also if MySQL drivers for Windows support ADO 2.1 or later then ADO can produce an MSXMLDOM object from an ADO query.<br><br>Good luck<br>-pete

 

[raymundo]

Pete, thanks for the quick reply.&nbsp;&nbsp;As you can probably tell from my original post I'm new to this.&nbsp;&nbsp;Can one build an online report using XML that would display information contained in a MySQL database.&nbsp;&nbsp;There would not need to be any calculations done.&nbsp;&nbsp;Only display the contents of a table row.<br><br>More specifically a semiannual report for each employee of a company listing the status of all their company benefits.&nbsp;&nbsp;The calculations would be done by the company using an offline database then imported into MySql. We plan to use XML on an intranet to display each employees report after a personal login.<br><br>Any ideas on how to accomplish this would be appreciated.<br><br>Ray

 

[palbano]

Ray,<br><br>&gt; Can one build an online report using XML<br><br>Can you clarify that? In a web browser? In a specific browser? Proprietary client application?<br><br>&gt; that would display information contained in a MySQL database.<br><br>What OS, what type of connectivity, i.e., local or remote? If remote, what communications protocols are used? RPC, TCP/IP etc...?<br><br>What available methods are there for connection to a MySQL database, i.e., OLEDB, ODBC proprietary API in C, Java... ?<br><br>-pete<br>

 

[raymundo]

We have a unix machine running the Apache server with MySql installed.&nbsp;&nbsp;We plan to use the tcp/ip protocol. We have enabled the mime type for XML for viewing of XML documents.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>We plan to target the IE5 browser as this will be on a company wide Intranet and all the company computers will use IE5.<br><br>At present we have no server side XML parser selected that will act as our middleware for data transfer between the database and the XML documents. Still deciding the best one to use.<br><br>Thanks,<br><br>Ray<br><br>I guess what I'm looking for is a smart way to accomplish this with the system we have now.&nbsp;&nbsp;Do not want to use ASP.

 

[palbano]

Ray,<br><br>So your only server side process is CGI then? If that's the aritechture path you are heading down you will have scaling problems. Assuming you can access MySQL through a C library, each hit to your web page will create a new CGI process that will try to obtain it's own connection to the database through the C library call. These database connection are an expensive resources on the server so this approach will not scale well.<br><br>You need to solve the database connection issues and server side process issues before you can expose data to the web from your database in any format, let alone XML.<br><br>&quot;But, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong&quot;.<br>-pete

 

[raymundo]

Actually, we are considering using Cocoon from Apache.org which retrieves data from the database with a SQLProcessor module which uses JDBC.<br><br>Are you familiar with this particular middle ware?&nbsp;&nbsp;If so is there anything I should watch out for?<br><br>Thanks,<br><br>Ray

 

[palbano]

&gt; Are you familiar with this particular middle ware?<br><br>Nope, have only used Oracle on Unix and their supplied JDBC driver.<br><br>-pete

 

[carpeliam]

wow, this is an older thread. Just noticed that. Haven't seen palbano's posts in a while... since August of last year, approximately. Wonder if he's still here.<br><br>I'll be setting up a site using Cocoon 2 in conjunction with MySQL... so if anybody has any pointers, please let me know ) thanks.. <p>Liam Morley<br><A HREF="mailto:"></A><br>&quot;light the deep, and bring silence to the world.<br>light the world, and bring depth to the silence.&quot;