Re: XML Documents in LDAP

[Dustin Sallings <dustin@spy.net>]

On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, axel wrote:

	It's cool to play wit all of the latest technologies and try to
mix them together and all that, but do you have a reason to store this
kinda stuff in LDAP?  Think of LDAP as NIS with a reliable crack
dealer...it gives you quick access to pieces of information describing a
noun.  The further you get from simple key/value(s) text, the less you're
using LDAP effectively.

	Of course, there are valid reasons for storing other types of
stuff in the server...configs, pictures of entries, stuff like that, but
those things require special LDAP clients to deal with them (well, any
client will get the data in and out, but not necessarily know what to do
with it).  The stuff in your XML document looks like something that should
either be in a relational database, or in an objectclass that will
describe this particular type of entity.  I don't really know what your
goals are, though...

	That being said, LDAP certainly can store newlines.  Your LDAP
client might have a hard time letting you enter them as more attributes
typically don't have newlines than do, but you certainly can put them in
there.  In fact, you can store any arbitrary binary data in an LDAP server
(you just have to ask yourself if it makes sense).

# For a project we want to store XML documents in an LDAP server. To store
# html is no problem. In html it's needed to use an cr because thereis for
# example the <br> to go to the next line. XML does not have something like
# this. Therefor another solution has to be found.
# 
# An XML-layout file looks like below (test.css):
# 
# KLASNAAM     {font-size: 16pt;color:
# black;font-weight:bold;display:block;text-align:center}
# KLAS     {display:block}
# PERSOON     {display:block}
# CIJFERS     {display:block}
# SEMESTER     {color: black;display:block}
# VAK     {font-size: 12pt;color: red;display:block}
# TENTAMEN     {font-size: 10pt;color: blue}
# HER     {font-size: 10pt;color: cyan}
# 
# Does anyone know a solution to put this file in the LDAP-directory structure
# 
# A xml file looks like below (test.xml):
# 
# <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
# <?xml-stylesheet type="text/css" href="test.css"?>
# <SCHOOL>
#  <KLAS>
#   <KLASNAAM> HI4 </KLASNAAM>
#   <KLASGENOOT>
#     <PERSOON>
#      <NUMMER>ux010934</NUMMER>
#      <NAAM>Frank Nijenhuis</NAAM>
#     </PERSOON>
#     <CIJFERS>
#      <SEMESTER>Semester <NUM>1</NUM>
#       <VAK>Geschiedenis <TENTAMEN> 4.5</TENTAMEN><HER> 5.3</HER></VAK>
#      </SEMESTER>
#     </CIJFERS>
#   </KLASGENOOT>
#   <KLASGENOOT>
#    <PERSOON>
#     <NUMMER>ux010583</NUMMER>
#     <NAAM>Axel van Duijkeren</NAAM>
#    </PERSOON>
#    <CIJFERS>
#     <SEMESTER>Semester <NUM>1</NUM>
#      <VAK>Geschiedenis <TENTAMEN> 4.5</TENTAMEN><HER> 5.3</HER></VAK>
#     </SEMESTER>
#     <SEMESTER>Semester <NUM>2</NUM>
#      <VAK>Engels <TENTAMEN> 1.0</TENTAMEN><HER> 5.1</HER></VAK>
#      <VAK>Gymnastiek <TENTAMEN> 2.5</TENTAMEN><HER> 8.0</HER></VAK>
#     </SEMESTER>
#    </CIJFERS>
#   </KLASGENOOT>
#  </KLAS>
# </SCHOOL>
# 
# So the problem is that these two files have to be inserted in an LDAP
# stucture. LDAP doesn't take carriage returns, how can this problem be
# solved???
# 
# In advanced thanx
# 
# Axel
# 
# 
# 

--
dustin sallings                            The world is watching America,
http://2852210114/~dustin/                 and America is watching TV.