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Table of Contents Connect XML-2-DB User's Guide insertionMapRule.htmTable of ContentsdatabasePropagationRule.htm

5(l). XML Propagation Rule - <xml-propagation-rule>

Suppose that we have the following XML data file.

	 <customer-purchases>
   	      <customer first-name="Bill" last-name="Smith">
   	         <software-sale name="ABC Software" purchase-price="120.00" purchase-date="12/20/2001"
	                              sales-agent="Patrick"/>
   	         <software-sale name="DZ Software" purchase-price="2200.00" purchase-date="12/22/2001"
	                              sales-agent="Patrick"/>
   	      </customer>
   	      <customer first-name="John" last-name="Bush">					  
	         <software-sale name="DZ Software" purchase-price="2000.00" purchase-date="10/10/2002"
	                              sales-agent="Jane"/>
	         <software-sale name="Quicken" purchase-price="150.00" purchase-date="10/12/2002"
	                              sales-agent="Jane"/>
	         <software-sale name="Turbo Tax" purchase-price="50.00" purchase-date="10/10/2002"
	                              sales-agent="Jane"/>
   	      </customer>					  
	 </customer-purchases>

This file indicates that Bill Smith purchased 2 pieces of software - ABC Software and DZ software. Also, John Smith purchased 3 pieces of software - DZ Software, Quicken and Turbo Tax. The customer first-name and last-name along with the software name, purchase-price, purchase-date and sales-agent have to be inserted into SOFTWARE_SALES table. If an insertion-map rule is defined that maps the element <customer> to the table SOFTWARE_SALES, only 2 records will be inserted into SOFTWARE_SALES. There should be 5 sales records inserted. The element <software-sale> should be mapped to SOFTWARE_SALES in order to insert the correct number of records. However, neither software-sale nor any of its sub-elements have the customer first and last name. In such a case, we want the customer first-name and last-name to apply to all subsequent software-sale sub-elements of customer. This is done by using the XML propagation rule. The format of the XML propagation rule is as follows:

     <!ELEMENT xml-propagation-rule              (xml-link+)>
     <!ATTLIST xml-propagation-rule
          parent-element    CDATA #REQUIRED
          child-element      CDATA #REQUIRED>
		  
     <!ELEMENT xml-link                        EMPTY>
     <!ATTLIST xml-link
          parent-attribute-name        CDATA #IMPLIED
          child-attribute-name           CDATA #IMPLIED>

For the example listed above, the xml-propagation-rule would be:

     <xml-propagation-rule parent-element="customer" child-element="software-sale">
       <link parent-attribute-name="first-name" child-attribute-name="customer-first-name"/>
       <link parent-attribute-name="last-name" child-attribute-name="customer-last-name"/>
     </xml-propagation-rule>

This rule indicates that the Connect XML-2-DB tool will assume that the customer-first-name attribute of software-sale sub-elements of a customer element, will be assigned the same value as the attribute first-name of customer. In other words the first-name and last-name attributes of a customer element are propagated to the customer-first-name and customer-last-name attributes of all software-sale subelements of customer.

An insertion map rule that maps software-sale to SOFTWARE_SALES can now be defined. In addition with the following mapping rule, the correct information will be stored in the SOFTWARE_SALES table.

    <insertion-map element-name="software-sale" table-reference="SoftwareSales"/>

    <map 
        element-name="software-sale"
        attribute-name="customer-first-name"
        table-reference="SoftwareSales"
        column-name="FIRST_NAME"/>
		
    <map 
        element-name="software-sale"
        attribute-name="customer-last-name"
        table-reference="SoftwareSales"
        column-name="LAST_NAME"/>
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insertionMapRule.htmTable of ContentsdatabasePropagationRule.htm