Managing compound XML documents in a repository

• US 7,827,177 B2
• Filed: 05/29/2007
• Issued: 11/02/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Murthy, Ravi
• Primary Examiner(s): wong; don
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen; Merilyn P
• Application Number:
  US11/807,938
• Publication Number:
  US 20080091703A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,253 Days
• Field of Search: 707 1- 3, 707100-102, 707/200, 707/203, 707/693, 707/695, 707/736, 707/755
• US Class Current: 707/736
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/83 Querying

Abstract

A declarative mechanism is used to manage large documents within a repository. The large documents are sectioned into subdocuments that are linked together by a parent document. The combination of the parent document and subdocument is referred to as a compound document. There are multiple options for configuring rules to break up a source document into a compound document and naming the subdocuments. The compound documents may be queried using statements that treat the compound document as a single XML document, or the parent document of a subdocument may be queried and treated independently. Access control and versioning can be applied at the finer granularity of the subdocument.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

accessing compound document declarations that specify how to section a given XML document into subdocuments of a compound document;

one or more computing devices generating a compound document that includes a parent document and a plurality of subdocuments of said parent document;

wherein content of said parent document includes for each subdocument of said plurality of subdocuments, a link to said each subdocument; and

wherein generating said compound document includes applying said compound document declarations to a source XML document to generate said parent document and said plurality of subdocuments of said parent document.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said compound document declarations are included in an XML schema document that is referenced by said source XML document.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1,

wherein generating said compound document is performed in response to receiving a request to store the given XML document in a particular repository that stores resources;

wherein said particular repository associates resources with one or more resource configurations that specify how said particular repository processes said resources; and

wherein said one or more resource configurations include said compound document declarations.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said compound document declarations include one or more XPath expressions that identify content in said given XML document that comprises a given subdocument.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said compound document declarations include a certain instruction that specifies how to generate at least one of a subdocument name or subdocument resource path.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein said certain instruction conforms to XPath.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein generating a compound document includes generating within said content of said parent document a link to each subdocument of said plurality of subdocuments.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein generating within said content of said parent document a link includes generating within said content of said parent document a link to each subdocument according to a certain instruction that indicates that said link should be a hard, weak, or symbolic link.

9. A computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising,

receiving a statement that requests at least a portion of said compound document;

and

in response to receiving said statement, the one or more computing devices expanding at least one link of a certain subdocument of said plurality of subdocuments by replacing the link with content of said certain subdocument.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein said statement includes an expression that references the parent document and represents an expansion said parent document.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein said expression includes an operator based on said parent document.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

said repository receiving a statement that specifies a change to content of said compound document, wherein said statement does not reference any subdocument of said plurality of subdocument;

wherein said content is in a certain subdocument of said plurality of subdocuments;

in response to receiving said statement, the one or more computing devices changing said subdocument.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein said statement includes an expression that references the parent document and represents an expansion of said parent document.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein said expression includes an operator based on said parent document.

15. A computer-readable storage medium storing one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes the one or more processors to perform the method:

accessing compound document declarations that specify how to section a given XML document into subdocuments of a compound document;

generating a compound document that includes a parent document and a plurality of subdocuments of said parent document;

wherein content of said parent document includes for each subdocument of said plurality of subdocuments, a link to said each subdocument; and

wherein generating said compound document includes applying said compound document declarations to a source XML document to generate said parent document and said plurality of subdocuments of said parent document.

16. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein said compound document declarations are included in an XML schema document that is referenced by said source XML document.

17. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15,

wherein generating said compound document is performed in response to receiving a request to store the given XML document in a particular repository that stores resources;

wherein said particular repository associates resources with one or more resource configurations that specify how said particular repository processes said resources; and

wherein said one or more resource configurations include said compound document declarations.

18. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15,

wherein said compound document declarations include one or more XPath expressions that identify content in said given XML document that comprises a given subdocument.

19. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15,

wherein said compound document declarations include a certain instruction that specifies how to generate at least one of a subdocument name or subdocument resource path.

20. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 19,

wherein said certain instruction conforms to XPath.

21. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15,

wherein generating a compound document includes generating within the content of said parent document a link to each subdocument of said plurality of subdocuments.

22. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 21,

wherein generating within said content of said parent document a link includes generating within said content of said parent document a link to each subdocument according to a certain instruction that indicates that said link should be a hard, weak, or symbolic link.

23. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, further causes the one or more processors to perform:

receiving a statement that requests at least a portion of said compound document; and

in response to receiving said statement, one or more computing devices expanding at least one link of a certain subdocument of said plurality of subdocuments by replacing the link with content of said certain subdocument.

24. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 23, wherein said statement includes an expression that references the parent document and represents an expansion said parent document.

25. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 24, wherein said expression includes an operator based on said parent document.

26. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the one or more sequences of instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, further causes the one or more processors to perform:

said repository receiving a statement that specifies a change to content of said compound document, wherein said statement does not reference any subdocument of said plurality of subdocuments;

wherein said content is in a certain subdocument of said plurality of subdocument;

in response to receiving said statement, the one or more processors changing said subdocument.

27. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 26, wherein said statement includes an expression that references the parent document and represents an expansion of said parent document.

28. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 27, wherein said expression includes an operator based on said parent document.