XML features are popping up in applications like flowers after a spring rain. And it hasn't taken long for a new problem to blossom―managing XML data in an organized way. The native XML database has sprung forth to address the problem. Any company with an XML strategy has good reason to use a native XML database. XML and SQL just don't match on a number of levels. They use different data types, and XML's ability to change structure in the middle of a document does not mesh with a relational database's rigid table structures. Also, when an XML document is stored in a relational table, information can be lost, such as element ordering and the distinction between attributes and elements. But going native presents problems of its own: Relational data becomes hard or impossible to access, and the software is immature in terms of data-integrity features, programmabil-ity, concurrency, and standardization.
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