Chapter 11: XML Data Management in .NET

Overview

The previous three chapters have largely been concerned with working with relational data in ASP.NET. Even though XML is gradually spreading into most areas of computing, databases such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, and Sybase still form the backbone of most commercial environments. However, to conclude our study of data management techniques within ASP.NET, this chapter looks in more detail at how to work with XML documents.

Unlike ASP versions 3.0 and earlier, you don't need to use add-ons such as an XML parser or other specialist components to be able to work with XML-formatted data. All the necessary tools are built into the .NET Framework as a set of useful and extensible classes. You can use these to read, write, and edit XML in its native format, and convert from relational data to XML and back again.

This chapter will look at:

• Accessing relational data as XML and vice versa.

• Synchronization between an XML document and the DataSet object.

• Validating XML documents using a schema.

• Creating and editing XML documents in a range of different ways.

• Some alternatives available when transforming XML using stylesheets.

Part of Chapter 8 explored the whole object model for XML under .NET, and the way this changes working with XML. We also demonstrated many of the more simple techniques. Here, we'll take a detailed look at the interchangeability of XML and relational data.