What's New In Oracle XML DB?

This chapter describes the new features and functionality, enhancements, APIs, and product integration support added to Oracle XML DB for Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1).

Oracle XML DB: Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1), Enhancements

This section summarizes the Oracle XML DB enhancements provided with Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1).

Exporting and Importing XML Data

Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1) provides enhanced IMPORT/EXPORT utility support to assist in loading XML data into Oracle XML DB. See Chapter 28, " Importing and Exporting XMLType Tables ".

XML Schema Evolution Support

In prior releases an XML schema, once registered with Oracle XML DB at a particular URL, could not be modified or evolved since there may be XMLType tables that depend on the XML schema. There was no standard procedure for schema evolution. This release supports XML schema evolution by providing a PL/SQL procedure named CopyEvolve() as part of the DBMS_XMLSCHEMA package

DBMS_XMLGEN Now Supports Hierarchical Queries

DBMS_XMLGEN now supports hierarchical queries. See Chapter 15, " Generating XML Data from the Database", Generating XML from Oracle Database Using DBMS_XMLGEN.

Globalization Support: Character Encoding and Multibyte Characters

You can now set your client character set different from the database character set. Appropriate conversion will take place to present the XML data in the character set of the client. In addition, using FTP or HTTP, you can specify multibyte characters in the directory, filename, or URL, and you can transfer or receive data encoded in a different character set from the database. Oracle XML DB can handle all popular XML character encodings as long as the database character set supports characters in use. For full support of all valid XML characters, use UTF-8 as your database character set.

C and C++ APIs for XML

The C API for XML is used for both XDK (XML Developer's Kit) and Oracle XML DB. It is a C-based DOM API for XML and can be used to handle XML inside and outside the database. See Chapter 13, " Using C API for XML With Oracle XML DB".

SQL*Loader Supports XMLType Tables and Columns Independent of Storage

In this release, SQL*Loader supports XMLType tables as well as XMLType columns. It can load XMLType data regardless of whether the data is stored in LOBs or in an object-relational manner. See Chapter 27, " Loading XML Data into Oracle XML DB Using SQL*Loader ".

DBMS_XMLGEN: Pretty Printing Option Can be Turned Off

DBMS_XMLGEN has an option to turn off pretty printing.

Oracle Text Enhancements

This release offers the following Oracle Text enhancements:

• CTXXPATH index now supports the following Xpath expressions:

  • Positional predicates such as /A/B[3]

  • Attribute existence expressions such as /A/B/@attr or /A/B[@attr]

• Highlighting is now supported for INPATH and HASPATH operators for ConText indextype.

• The syntax for the XPath function ora:contains has changed.

Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing (AQ) Support

With this release, the Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing (AQ) Internet Data Access Presentation (iDAP) has been enhanced. IDAP facilitates your using AQ over the Internet. You can now use AQ XML servlet to access the database AQ using HTTP and SOAP.

Also in this release, IDAP is the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) implementation for AQ operations. IDAP now defines the XML message structure used in the body of the SOAP request.

You can now use XMLType as the AQ payload type instead of having to embed XMLType as an attribute in an Oracle object type.

Oracle XDK Support for XMLType