I have a system by which I store complex data in PostgreSQL as an XML
string. I have a simple function that can return a single value.
I would like to return sets and sets of rows from the data. This is not a
huge problem, as I've written a few of these functions. The question I'd
like to put out there, is how would you represent heirarchical data as:
<foo> <bar> <ndx>0</ndx> <val>1.00</val> <meta>2.5</meta> <froboz>3.5</froboz> <klude> <item>5</item>
<life>10</life> </kludge> </bar> <bar> <ndx>1</ndx> <val>1.10</val> <meta>2.2</meta> <froboz>3.53</froboz>
<klude> <item>3</item> <life>9</life> </kludge> </bar>
</bar>
The biggest problem with XML is storing data is easy, getting it back out
in a sane way is less so. How would you guys think to represent this?
(Obviously, this is a bogus example, real life would be much worse!)