J. WEB. INFOR. SYST. X (X), XX 200X. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1 Updating Multidimensional XML Documents

Purpose – In a wide spectrum of applications it is desirable to manipulate semistructured information that may present variations according to different circumstances. Multidimensional XML (MXML) is an extension of XML suitable for representing data that assume different facets, having different value and / or structure under different contexts. The purpose of this research is to develop techniques for updating MXML documents. Design/methodology/approach – Updating XML has been studied in the past, however, updating MXML must take into account the additional features which stem from incorporating context into MXML. We investigate the problem of updating MXML in two levels: a) at the graph level, i.e. in an implementation independent way, and b) at the relational storage level. Findings – We introduce six basic update operations, which are capable of any possible change. We specify those operations in an implementation independent way, and explain their effect in the document through examples. We give algorithms that implement those operations using SQL on a specific storage method that employs relational tables for keeping MXML. We also give an overview of MXPath, an extension of XPath that incorporates context, and show how to translate MXPath queries to “equivalent ” SQL queries. Research limitations/implications – Though the proposed operations solve the problem of updating MXML documents, several problems, such as formally define MXPath and its translation to SQL, remain to be investigated in the future in order to implement a system that stores, queries and updates MXML documents through a relational database infrastructure. Practical implications – MXML is suitable for representing, in a compact way, data that assume different facets, having different value o