A ToolBox for Conservative XML Schema Evolution and Document Adaptation

Abstract: This paper proposes a set of tools to help dealing with XML database evolution. It aims at establishing a multi-system environment where a global integrated system works in harmony with some local original ones, allowing data translation in both directions and, thus, activities on both levels. To deal with schemas, we propose an algorithm that computes a mapping capable of obtaining a global schema which is a conservative extension of original local schemas. The role of the obtained mapping is then twofold: it ensures schema evolution, via composition and inversion, and it guides the construction of a document translator, allowing automatic data adaptation w.r.t. type evolution. This paper applies, extends and put together some of our previous contributions.