Professional SQL Server 2000 XML

The most important new features of SQL Server 2000 concern XML and the added functionality that it provides. This includes the ability to use XML documents to update your database, access SQL Server through HTTP and retrieve data from your database in XML format.

Building extensively on the new features introduced in Professional SQL Server 2000 (1-861004-48-6) this book goes beyond just the key issues and provides blanket in-depth coverage of advanced topics, including both XDR and XSD schemas (support for which has been added in the new Web Release 2), and additions in Web Release 1, such as Updategrams and XML Bulk Load. This book also includes five real-world case studies that show exactly how the XML capabilities of SQL Server 2000 can best be exploited with technologies as diverse as ASP, C#, and SOAP.

This book covers:
An introduction to XML
How to retrieve XML data from your database using FOR XML
Exposing XML documents as relational resultsets using OPENXML
Using XDR and XSD schemas to retrieve results through HTTP requests
Describing SQL Server tables using XML Views
A detailed discussion of the use of XPath queries with SQL Server
Modifying your database with Updategrams
Importing XML documents into your database with XML Bulk Load
An overview of the new features provided with Beta 1 of Web Release 2

Key to the interoperability of Microsoft SQL Server 2000--its ability to exchange information with other database management systems and with client applications--is its support of Extensible Markup Language (XML). Regardless of whether you're a database administrator charged with designing and maintaining databases or a software developer who uses SQL Server at the back end of a multitiered application, you need to understand what XML is all about, and how SQL Server goes about reading and writing it. Professional SQL Server 2000 XML uses an approach typical of Wrox Press--liberal commentary interspersed with plenty of examples that build on one another--to help its readers learn about its subject.

This book was written by a team of authors, each of whom wrote a few chapters in his or her specialty area. Like any book written by several people, this one displays different writing styles throughout, but the effect is not striking if you use the book mainly as a reference. Each author typically takes on the capabilities of SQL Server and XML one at a time, explaining what each is all about before launching into examples (complete with code) that reveal the mechanisms at work. It's a lot of information to absorb, but the authors do a fine job of presenting it logically. Case studies present big projects that each employ several of SQL Server's XML capabilities. --David Wall

Topics covered: The XML capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server 2000, including the FOR XML clauses in Transact-SQL, the OpenXML specification, XDR and XSD schemas, templates, views, and updategrams.