Talk:XML - Managing Data Exchange/The many-to-many relationship

There appears to be an error in the example used in this page. One of the code listings is supposed to be an XSLT stylesheet but (I believe this is by error) the XML instance document (source of the transformation) is repeated instead. I'd like to see the XSLT document referenced in the discussion.

Also, Line numbers are referred to in the text but don't appear in the examples.

I tried to locate contact information to report these editing oversites, but couldn't locate any. Hopefully this submission will be forwarded to someone who can report the erros.

Cheers,

Nick Nagel

Chapter Revision Suggestions
proposed by Christina Serrano 1/29/06

The following two suggestions are intended to focus the chapter on the many-to-many concept. These additional sections add confusion and inconsistency to the chapter. Moreover, these sections are not specific to the many-to-many relationship and can be applied to other XML chapters, so it would make sense to place these sections in separate resource chapters.
 * Remove the section on xslt numeric functions--this information could be placed in a chapter about xslt.
 * Remove the section on additional data types for xml schemas--this information could be placed in a chapter about xml schemas.

The following are suggestions to improve the many-to-many sections:
 * After the intro, explain the problems inherent in representing many-to-many relationships in XML.
 * Show examples of each proposed solution to remedy the many-to-many problem.
 * Apply formatting changes outlined in the author guidelines.
 * Edit for spelling, grammar, and sentence structure.

Professor's comments
The m:m example needs to be redone to give a more complete coverage of the problem. Refer to http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-xdm2m.html. We need to cover the first two cases and explain the ID and IDREF datataypes. Also, I think we just focus on a part of the data model. The suggested version follows.



Also, to use a stylesheet with an m:m, the key function needs to be introduced.

rtw 17:50, 5 Feb 2006 (UTC)

Post-revision Comments
Christina Serrano 2/23/06

I'm still not too clear on how to explain the key function. I've added a short paragraph about it, but I wasn't sure how detailed I should go in this chapter. I used the following resource: http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt#key. This page contains more comprehensive information regarding the key function, so I can add more to this chapter--or would it be more appropriate to add this information to the XSLT chapter?