Re: [Exist-development] Moving towards a new API

[Adam R. <ad...@ex...>]

On 7 September 2010 17:00, Jason Smith <js...@in...> wrote:
> I was thinking about remote/local too.  That is certainly something that could be done with just a little planning.
>
> Where is the best documentation on the Fluent API?  I guess I should take a look.  I didn't use it originally because when I started this, Fluent was in its infancy...  :-)
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eugene Marcotte [mailto:eu...@em...]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2010 4:17 AM
> To: Jason Smith
> Subject: Re: [Exist-development] Moving towards a new API
>
> Hi,
>
> JSR 225 was the "XQuery API for Java (XQJ)" project.
> http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=225
>
> I looked at it a couple months ago and thought it was mostly too much
> like JDBC to be a useful XMLDB-API replacement.

Likewise I agree that it is heavily JDBC influenced, however there is
someone I am aware of working on an implementation of this for
eXist-db.

> I really do like the XMLDB-API's approach, especially because it works
> both remote and local. If it was a tad more up-to-date -- e.g. more like
> the fluent API it'd be even better!

I was never really a fan of XMLDB-API.

I do really like the Fluent API, but it is local only so you would
need to abstract and add a remote implementation. If you are
interested in Fluent API then you should contact Piotr Kaminski the
original author - pi...@id....

Whatever you decide you should certainly consider the aspect of
streaming in any API that you enhance or develop. This is important
when you have large datasets or long running queries.

> Eugene (an exist-devel lurker)
>
>
> On 9/3/2010 10:38 PM, Jason Smith wrote:
>> We talked on Thursday about a new API that would be more powerful than existing APIs and provide a wrapper for the internal API.
>>
>> After thinking about this some more, I'd like to consider the XMLDB-API model.  There is a lot that is right about the XMLDB wrapper.  It has pretty good collection and resource facilities, and it can be used to access large data sets in a "sequence"-like manner.
>>
>> I think where XMLDB falls down is around standardization.  The XMLDB standard was designed in the days when an XML database could do XPath 1.0.  It can't fully support the XQuery standard without significant changes.  It can't be extended to do some of the things that eXist does specifically.  XMLDB as a standard seems kind of dead at this point anyway.
>>
>> Just one example - this email is getting too long...  I can't use XMLDB to return a Sequence of xs:dateTime, which I then pass as a parameter to another XQuery.  XMLDB only deals with string output, and the set of input types is very limited.
>>
>>
>>
>> So right now, I am thinking about an API that would aspire to replace the XMLDB API in Exist.  I think it should also hide (wrap) the current locking and transaction mechanisms (since these are bound to change in the next year or two).
>>
>> It would not be based on any standard, but would be designed to provide maximally simple and powerful access to as much of the internal API as possible, and to be easy to extend as new features become available.
>>
>> If we do it right, we could also make this a cross-platform API (supporting languages other than Java), kind of like the REST API today, but targeted to language APIs.
>>
>> Does this sound like a good path to start down?  Different ideas?
>>
>> BTW, I know there is a JSR that covers an XML database API somewhere out there, or one was in work...  I looked at it a long time ago, and it did not seem all that applicable.  Is there any interest in that API, and if so, can someone point me to a link?  I seem to be having trouble finding it again.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> -Jason S.
>>
>>
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-- 
Adam Retter

eXist Developer
{ United Kingdom }
ad...@ex...
irc://irc.freenode.net/existdb