By Ronald Bourret
In this paper we will discuss strategies for transferring data between XML documents and relational databases according to two mappings (a table-based mapping and an object-based mapping) commonly used to map DTDs to relational databases. Although the discussion largely focuses on the difference between using SAX- and DOM-based tools to transfer data, it also discusses a number of strategies for traversing both the XML and database hierarchies and the tradeoffs among them.
IMPORTANT: The table-based mapping and the object-based mapping are not discussed in this paper. However, you must understand them before reading this paper. For more information, see Mapping DTDs to Databases.