Re: 32767 limit - SQL/XML and RPG resources

Nick

Thanks for this - I do want to go with the new support.

FYI - CGIDEV2 is a template-with-tags-based kind of thing - you create a shell XML document with placeholders for "sections" and "data". The sections can be things like the opening tag for an element, then another for the data itself, then one for the closing tag.

Or that could all be one section, if there is no nesting of elements. The RPG then becomes just procedure calls that set the data tag values and write the sections.

That looks a little like the DAD you write about with XML Extenders, insofar as it is purpose-driven, not general.

A question - the XML support seems not to do anything with DTDs. The structure of the XML I'm supposed to generate includes the <!DOCTYPE some_type SYSTEM "some.dtd"> - can I use this new support to include that in my output. The partner also wants the <?xml version=...> line. I think we are stuck with it. So that might have some bearing on what I use.

Thanks again!
Vern

----- Original Message -----


Vernon,

I think you will find the previously mentioned post on Mike Cain's blog,
and the white paper very helpful. The publishing functions (XMLELEMENT,
XMLATTRIBUTES, XMLDOCUMENT, etc) are what you want to use. Both of the
mentioned resources directly compare the publishing functions to the XML
Extender option.

I expect you will find the built-in SQL/XML support superior to the XML
Extender option. The XML Extender solution was a remarkable bit of
technology, but it has now fallen very far behind the W3C XML standards and
doesn't conform to the ISO SQL standard either. The SQL/XML approach
offers more functionality, and is a standardized part of the SQL language.
We have not done an all-inclusive performance test, but the scenarios I
looked at suggest SQL/XML performs better as well (My blog post on Mike
Cain's blog provides some details to back up this claim).

For these reasons, DB2 for z/OS and DB2 for LUW have already depreciated
the XML Extender solution in favor of SQL/XML

The other thing to keep in Mind is that the XML Extender is a priced option
and SQL/XML is included in DB2 for i 7.1.

I have not used CGIDEV2, but I suspect some of the same comments for the
XML Extender will apply to this tooling as well. SQL/XML is the preferred
approach when working with both XML and relational data in a query.

Nick Lawrence
DB2 for IBM i

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue
that counts.
- Winston Churchill