SQL or XML?

[Travis Pupkin]

I've been using ASP with SQL Server for some time now, and while I've
occasionally looked into XML, its benefits have never seemed apparent
enough to me for me to dig any deeper and make any use of it.

Well, I'm using a utility now that exports my QuickBooks data into
either an Access DB or a group of XML docs. I've been using the Access
option and then importing that data into my SQL database so I can build
a client section displaying invoices and estimates online.

I'm not entirely satisfied with the Access option, as it requires that I
delete all my SQL tables before I import an update of data (or I end up
with doubled records of older data). It would be a great solution to
simply upload the new XML docs to update the online data. But.

Does XML work comparably to SQL, to allow me to manipulate the data,
create recordsets from it, etc., or is it really a whole different thing
made for a whole different purpose and I should stick to what I'm
familiar with, even though it takes an extra step or two?

 

[Chris Barber]

XML and SQL are two completely different beasts and I suspect that your
experience of XML and XSLT is not particularly comprehensive given that you
asked the question at all.

You could run a series of delete statements on the Access tables to remove
the existing data before uploading the new.
Alternatively loo at using MSDE or SQL Server for the database.
Another method is to keep a blank shell of the Access DB and just delete the
existing replacing it with the blank one before doing the export / import.

I can see a possibility with XML though - using XSLT to generate the web
page content might provide a very quick interface without the requirement of
a back end database However, referencing XML documents() dynamically from
the XSLT is easy to mess up and it *will* throw an error if a document
doesn't exist during the XSLT (there is no chance to check beforehand).

As a compromise (depends on your level of XSLT) I'd probably look at using
ASP to generate XML from the database and then use XSLT to create the HTML.
It's amazing how much easier HTML web pages have become for me with the
advent of XSLT.

Chris.

I've been using ASP with SQL Server for some time now, and while I've
occasionally looked into XML, its benefits have never seemed apparent
enough to me for me to dig any deeper and make any use of it.

Well, I'm using a utility now that exports my QuickBooks data into
either an Access DB or a group of XML docs. I've been using the Access
option and then importing that data into my SQL database so I can build
a client section displaying invoices and estimates online.

I'm not entirely satisfied with the Access option, as it requires that I
delete all my SQL tables before I import an update of data (or I end up
with doubled records of older data). It would be a great solution to
simply upload the new XML docs to update the online data. But.

Does XML work comparably to SQL, to allow me to manipulate the data,
create recordsets from it, etc., or is it really a whole different thing
made for a whole different purpose and I should stick to what I'm
familiar with, even though it takes an extra step or two?