xml as replacement of databases

[mona]

I know that databases cannot be replaced by xml , and that they are complement to each other but I want to know if there are some cases or small applications where we need database but we can replace that by using xml only. If there is such cases please give me a small idea about that and what kind of applications can be done like that?..

[playmenow]

erm...update feature for a media player... http://www.playmeno.org ...it will download a file called 'update.xml' in C:\\ & will comparei t to what i set in the prog. and tell us if there's a new update available

[boen_robot]

I think the site above is "plamenoW" but anyway...I think what playmenow meant (or if not, I'll add it) is different news. Pretty much RSS feeds.Any small application for which you'll need a database could be replace by XML as long as it doesn't requre forms. Especially if it's all done locally, it gets really easy, scince there isn't any "download it all first" issues.One example is the XML file used in the examples. It's practically a small database. It won't get much bigger, scince we're talking about a person's personal collection instead of some kind of a company's entire catalog.

[Skemcin]

XML can very easily replace a simple flat database. But xml will never be able to offer the additional functionality that database system provides.Examples of how xml can replace a database are really all around. Although RSS, as boen_robot mentions, is a good example of xml being used like a portable database, it is actually quite the opposite. RSS was evented from already databased information. Data was exported into a specific format (RSS standard) in order to share the data between different database types.Anyway, you could take something like the phone numbers stored in your cell phone - most likely all XML. Would make sense to have them database in something, but XML is perfect for that - no need to have heavy database applications installed on your cell phone - just a small text file and some hardware programmed to read and write to the text file.So, your website could conceivably have all your friends phone numbers store in an XML file. Using XSL, you can easily display that information in simple web page - no server side scripting needed and no database needed either.

[dooberry]

I think I'd have to disagree with the remark that you can't use xml with forms. I'm using it ok at the moment and I'm writing a "server free" application which will allow people to work offline and work online when they have network availability. Every time I've encountered a problem, I've found a way to work round it on here.The other thing that's great about xml is you can remove the need for relational data management by using the parent/child relationship of elements and nodes, or you can use multiple documents in a relational manner if you want to think in database terms.Quite frankly, XML ROCKS as a language and I think that databases will become a thing of the past as technology improves and XML awareness increases .

[Skemcin]

I can appreciate your enthusiasm about XML and I agree to a point that it will find its way into many more applications in the future. But it will, by no means, replace a database system as you elude to - it simply can't. It is simply a structured based, stand alone way of formatting data. It needs something else to be worth anything, it needs a XSLT or a server side scripting language in order to do anything with it. A database, like Sequel Server, has a number of additional capabilities that XMl simply does not and cannot have - mainly saved queries (views), user defined functions, stored procedures, etc. Plus, there is little security in an XML, if your web page is accessing it then there is a good chance a simple hack can manipulate it - thats not the case with a database.Don't get me wrong, I love XML and I love the applications I use it in, but there are very few situations where XML can solely replace a database.