Re: [ubl-dev] Tools for database support for UBL?

["Stephen Green" <stephen_green@bristol-city.gov.uk>]

Folks

I've found an interesting possible solution, sort of like I'm wanting. 
I might be able to use an opensource product DBDesigner ( fabFORCE.net ) 
which models database schemas in UML and which has as its file
format an XML file. It can output SQL (a version designed for the MySQL
database but adaptable for other databases)

One can transform the UBL Schemas (and possibly any CAM mappings though
that would be more ambitious) into the XML that DBDesigner uses.

That would cater for XSD >> SQL CREATE queries. 
That still leaves the instance >> SQL updates but there are other commercial
tools for that I guess.

This could be a useful developer tool in the making.

Thanks fabFORCE.net :-)

Stephen Green

(PS disclaimer: not endorsing any products here for commercial use - 
but it does it demonstrate the usefulness of the nice XML file format and GNU 
licence.)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Stephen Green" <stephen_green@bristol-city.gov.uk>
To: ">" <"'ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org'"<ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 5:30 AM
Subject: [ubl-dev] Tools for database support for UBL?


Dear UBL-DEV, Hi

If anyone has interest in the possibility of developing tools to help store
UBL
and UBL-based instances in a relational database I've been thinking along
the
following lines:

1. What sort of tables could UBL map to? What would be the relational
mapping, say?

2. Need to map Schemas to 'CREATE' SQL and develop a generator for that

3. Need to map instances to 'UPDATE' SQL (etc ...?) and develop a generator
for that

I wonder if any have thoughts of devloping something like the above, perhaps
as opensource
or priced attractively to foster wider UBL / UBL-like Schema adoption (the
key to successful
use of UBL perhaps).

What worries me is the complexity of UBL but there's the challenge and the
drive I suppose.
It would seem obvious to just treat every ABIE as a table and every document
as an
ABIE/table too. The relationships are where I get a bit lost.

Another key factor would be to make the tools generic - to handle any
Schemas built
by the UBL NDR rules and from the UBL spreadsheets (e.g. see UBLish from
softml.com
which uses a scripting language similar to perl).

All the best

Steve