ObjectStore

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ObjectStore

Version: Enterprise and Personal Editions
Company: Object Design

Overview

An object database with native XML capabilities, Object Design's ObjectStore can manage, serve, index, and query native XML documents. The XML capabilities come by way of incorporating Microsoft's XML parser in Java and an XML ObjectStore. According to Object Design, this feature lets "you define a database schema with a document type definition (DTD) and add, manage, and retrieve the data through HTML tags. If you want to build an application accessing existing data, the XML Object Manager imports the legacy data directly into ObjectStore."

In a White Paper on its Web site, Object Design makes the case that object-oriented data management is inherently better suited to XML than is relational technology. "Using an object DBMS that directly supports hierarchy and object data management, XML data can be naturally stored, manipulated and managed at an element level of granularity. In contrast, relational databases must map XML to relational tables and construct and flatten XML structures into rows and columns each time data is needed. ObjectStore can store the data without mapping code, and without run-time joins."

Recognizing, nevertheless, that most data today is stored in relational tables, Object Design offers "DBconnect" to map relational data to its own middle tier.

While all of the fanfare surrounds XML, it is interesting to note that ObjectStore also has full support for SGML, most likely a legacy of working with Chrystal and Inso, which built SGML systems on top of ObjectStore.

Availability: Solaris Sparc and Intel, Windows NT Intel and Alpha, Windows 95, HP-UX, Irix, IBM AIX and OS/2, Digital Unix, SNI Reliant Unix, and NEC Unix

More Information: http://www.odi.com/objectstore/::Product Info

This information has been provided by the vendor and has not been evaluated by O'Reilly's editorial staff.