XML and Databases

COMP4317/9317
Session 1, 2009

General Information and Formal Notices

Course Aims

XML has become the lingua franca for data on the web. Practically all programming languages offer XML support and an increasing number of jobs in industry require proficiency with XML technologies. This course gives an introduction to semi-structured data, and XML in particular. It explains tools and languages for XML processing and gives the student a hands-on experience with them. The main focus, however, will be on understanding the fundamental new aspects of dealing with XML data, which are not present in the relational data world. In this way, the student will gain some industrial relevant skills as well as an exposure to fundamental topics (such as tree automata) of significant intellectual depth.

This course will introduce you to the world of XML and to the challenges of dealing with XML in a RDBMS (relational database management system).
You will learn about

Tree structured data (XML)
XML parsers & efficient memory representation
Query languages for XML (XPath, XQuery, XSLT)
Efficient evaluation using finite-state automata
Mapping XML to databases
Advanced topics (query optimizations, access control, update languages)

Student Learning Outcomes

At the start of this course students should be able to

understand fundamental data structures; use of pointers.
produce correct programs in either Java or C/C++, compile them, run them, test them, etc.
appreciate use of abstraction in computing

Graduate attributes (UNSW graduate attributes and our Engineering's contextualised graduate attributes) are the qualities, skills and understandings a university agrees its students should develop during their studies. Some of these graduate attributes will be developed and assessed in this course in terms of the following knowledge and skill outcomes:

Represent data, using XML, DTDs, and XMLSchema
Use XML from within a programming language, using DOM and SAX
Use and know how to implement XML queries languages such as XPath, XQuery, and XSLT
understand algorithms and programming techniques to efficiently manipulate XML data (such as regular expressions and finite-state automata)
be able to digest and understand the thick pile of W3C standards such as XQuery, XPointer, XLink, XHTML, XInclude, XML Base, XML Schema, etc, etc.

Credit value and mode of instruction

6UOC and 3L+1T/L

Assessment criteria

5 Assignments (each worth 12%), Total: 60%
====> IMPORTANT: YOU MUST NOT COPY!! Read the Plagiarism policy of UNSW!!
Final exam: 40% (3h, written, open book)
To pass, you must get at least 40% for the final exam.

Late assigments: The maximum possible mark is reduced by 10% per day for the first 5 days after the due date;
after that no further penalty until 2 weeks, after which the assignment is regarded as not submitted at all.

Supplementary exam

Supplementary exams will only be awarded in well justified cases, in accordance with School policy, not as a second chance for poor performance.
In particular, it is unlikely that a supplementary will be awarded to students who have actually sat the proper exam.

Supplementary exams will be oral. The supplementary final exam will be held after the written supplementary exams held for other courses.

Relation with other courses

Prerequisite: COMP2011 or COMP2711 or COMP2911.
Equivalent: COMP9317, COMP9341

Pointers to important information

Students enrolled in this course are expected to attend all classes.
Plagiarism policy.
The use of School of Computer Science and Engineering computing laboratories is subject to rules described in the Yellow Form, which you acknowledge (electronic) receipt of when you receive your computing account.
The Yellow Form also outlines what to do in case illness or misadventure that affects your assessment, and supplementary examinations procedures within the School of Computer Science and Engineering.
UNSW Occupational Health and Safety policies and expectations.
Equity and Diversity.

Continual course improvement - Feedback

Student feedback on this course, and on the lecturing in this course, will be gathered via questionnaires held at or after the end of the course.
Student feedback is taken seriously, and continual improvements are made to the course based in part on this feedback.
The course was run in Session 1 of 2008 and received very positive feedback. Only two issues were critizied:

too much time spent on XPath
would like more of XSLT and XQuery, as they seem very practical

I am planning on removing one of the several lectures on XPath, and to instead have one more lecture about XSLT/XQuery.

CRICOS Provider Number: 00098G