Managing compound XML documents in a repository

• US 7,937,398 B2
• Filed: 10/13/2010
• Issued: 05/03/2011
• 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:
  US12/903,437
• Publication Number:
  US 20110047193A1
• Time in Patent Office: 202 Days
• Field of Search: 707/693, 707/695, 707/736, 707/755, 707/690, 707/696, 707/802
• US Class Current: 707/755
• 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,

storing within a repository a compound document that includes:

a parent document,

a plurality of subdocuments of said parent document,

said parent document including for each subdocument of said plurality of subdocuments, a link to said each subdocument;

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 subdocuments;

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

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

in response to one or more computing devices changing said subdocument, storing another version of said subdocument.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein said statement includes an expression that references the parent document and represents an expansion of said parent document.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein said expression includes an operator based on said parent document.

5. A non-transitory 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:

storing within a repository a compound document that includes;

a parent document,

a plurality of subdocuments of said parent document,

said parent document including for each subdocument of said plurality of subdocuments, a link to said each subdocument;

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 subdocuments;

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

6. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 5, further comprising instructions which when executed perform:

in response to one or more computing devices changing said subdocument, storing another version of said subdocument.

7. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 5, wherein said statement includes an expression that references the parent document and represents an expansion of said parent document.

8. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 5, wherein said expression includes an operator based on said parent document.