System and method facilitating unified framework for structured/unstructured data

• US 7,895,173 B1
• Filed: 07/27/2005
• Issued: 02/22/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Gazitt, Omri, Dedu-Constantin, Daniel, Pizzo, Michael J.
• Primary Examiner(s): CHEN, TE Y
• Application Number:
  US11/190,678
• Time in Patent Office: 2,036 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 707/705
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/86 Mapping to a database

Abstract

A system and method facilitating a unified framework for accessing structured and unstructured data is provided. The invention includes a source document having data that is parsed into a data document component providing a hierarchical representation of data associated with the source document and a data set component providing a relational representation of at least a portion of the data associated with the source document. The invention further provides for a schema defining a structure of the relational representation to be associated with the source document and/or inferred by the data set component. Data stored in the data document component and the data set component are synchronized, thus a change made to data stored in the data set component is reflected in data stored in the data document component. Further, a change made to data stored in the data document component is reflected in data stored in the data set component if utilized according to the schema. The invention further provides for a service to access the hierarchical representation of data associated with the source document and/or a designer to access the relational representation of data associated with the source document.

Claims

1. At a computer system including a processor and system memory, a computer-implemented method for accessing data, comprising:

parsing a hierarchical source document into a data document that comprises a hierarchical representation of the source document;

loading, by the processor, information associated with the parsed hierarchical source document into a hierarchical, unstructured data document such that the data document comprises an unstructured hierarchical representation of the information associated with the hierarchical source document;

parsing the same hierarchical source document into a data set that comprises a relational representation of the source document;

loading information associated with the parsed hierarchical source document into the relational, structured data set such that the data set comprises a structured relational representation of at least some of the information associated with the hierarchical source document, wherein the structured relational representation is defined by a schema that is inferred based on information associated with the hierarchical source document; and

accessing the information in the hierarchical source document in at least one of the following manners using a software service;

as structured data via the structured data set or as unstructured, hierarchical data via the unstructured data document, wherein any changes to the data document are only reflected in the information stored in the data set if the changed data is associated with the relational data stored in the data set, such that integrity of the source document is maintained in the data stored in the data document while the data set maintains at least a subset of the information associated with the source document.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

synchronizing a change made to information stored in the data set to corresponding information stored in the data document.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing the relational representation of information associated with the source document stored in the data set utilizing a designer.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising synchronizing a change made to information stored in the data document to corresponding information stored in the data set if the changed information is included in the data set.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

associating a region of the hierarchical representation of data with a row of the data set having a relational representation; and

correlating a subset of the region with a state, the state being one of;

(1) the subset being mapped to an element of the data set;

(2) the subset being mapped to the row of the data set; and

(3) the subset being unmapped to the data set, a topmost node of the associated region is an element with a local name and namespace as at least one corresponding property of an associated data table in the data set.

6. The method of claim 1, the source document includes at least one of an XML document or a database.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining a defined relational schema, loading information associated with the source document into a data set takes place according to the determined schema.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

parsing information associated with a source document, at least a portion of the parsed information loads into the data document and at least a portion of the parsed information load into the data set;

allowing a user to gain access to the loaded information;

the source document includes an XML document.

9. A system facilitating access to data, comprising:

a computer processor;

a system memory;

a first storing module for storing a hierarchical source document as a hierarchical, unstructured data document such that the data document comprises an unstructured hierarchical representation of data associated with the hierarchical source document;

a second storing module for storing at least a portion of the same hierarchical source document as a relational, parsed, structured data set such that the data set comprises a structured relational representation of data, wherein the structured relational representation is defined by a schema that is inferred based on information associated with the hierarchical source document;

an accessing module comprising a software service for accessing at least one of the hierarchical, unstructured representation of data and the relational, structured representation of data in at least one of the following manners;

as structured data via the structured data set or as unstructured, hierarchical data via the unstructured data document; and

a synchronizing module for synchronizing a change to the relational, structured representation of data with the hierarchical, unstructured representation of data, wherein any changes to the data document are only reflected in the information stored in the data set if the changed data is associated with the relational data stored in the data set, such that integrity of the source document is maintained in the data stored in the data document while the data set maintains at least a subset of the information associated with the source document.

10. The system of claim 9, further comprising a second synchronizing module for synchronizing a change to the hierarchical representation of data with the relational representation of data.

11. The system of claim 9, further comprising:

a first loading module for loading information associated with the source document into the data document having the hierarchical representation of information associated with the source document;

a second loading module for loading information associated with the source document into the data set having the relational representation of at least some of the information associated with the source document;

a first accessing module for accessing the hierarchical representation of information associated with the source document stored in the data document utilizing a service;

a second accessing module for accessing the relational representation of information associated with the source document stored in the data set utilizing a designer;

a first associating module for associating a region of a hierarchical representation of data with a row of a relational data set;

a correlating module for correlating a subset of the region with a state, the state being one of;

(1) the subset being mapped to an element of the data set;

(2) the subset being mapped to the row of the data set; and

(3) the subset being unmapped to the data set;

a second associating module for associating the region of the hierarchical representation of data with the row of the relational data set includes mapping the region of the hierarchical representation of data with the row of the relational data set; and

a mapping module for mapping an attribute to a column or field, a value of the column or field is a value of the attribute.

12. At a computer system including a processor and system memory, a computer-implemented method for accessing data, comprising:

parsing a hierarchical source document into a data document that comprises a hierarchical representation of the source document;

loading, by the processor, information associated with the parsed hierarchical source document into a hierarchical, unstructured data document such that the data document comprises an unstructured hierarchical representation of the information associated with the hierarchical source document;

parsing the same hierarchical source document into a data set that comprises a relational representation of the source document;

loading information associated with the parsed hierarchical source document into the relational, structured data set such that the data set comprises a structured relational representation of at least some of the information associated with the hierarchical source document, wherein the structured relational representation is defined by a schema that is inferred based on information associated with the hierarchical source document;

associating a region of the hierarchical, unstructured representation of data with a row of the relational, structured data set;

correlating a subset of the region with a state, the state being one of;

(1) the subset being mapped to an element of the data set;

(2) the subset being mapped to the row of the data set; and

(3) the subset being unmapped to the data set, a topmost node of the associated region is an element with a local name and namespace as at least one corresponding property of an associated data table in a data set component; and

accessing the associated region of a hierarchical representation of data in at least one of the following manners using a software service;

as structured data via the structured data set or as unstructured, hierarchical data via the unstructured data document, wherein any changes to the data document are only reflected in the information stored in the data set if the changed data is associated with the relational data stored in the data set, such that integrity of the source document is maintained in the data stored in the data document while the data set maintains at least a subset of the information associated with the source document.

13. The method of claim 12, the subset comprising at least one of:

an element and an attribute.

14. The method of claim 12, the subset being mapped to a corresponding column of the data set.

15. The method of claim 12, the subset being mapped to a corresponding row of the data set.

16. The method of claim 12, further comprising ignoring unmapped information from the hierarchical representation of the data.

17. The method of claim 12, associating the region of the hierarchical representation of data with the row of the relational data set includes mapping the region of the hierarchical representation of data with the row of the relational data set;

within the region, at least one element or attribute is mapped to at least one corresponding column or field of the row of data in a data set component;

if more than one element has a same corresponding column or field, then a first occurrence of the element is mapped to the data set component with at least one remaining occurrence not mapped into the data set component;

mapping an attribute to a column or field, a value of the column or field is a value of the attribute.