The Road to XML Type

In this talk we will present the roadmap for the development of native XML type support in PostgreSQL. Started five years ago as a "contrib" module (contrib/xml2) by J. Gray, implementing a set of basic XML-oriented features, it is now in the process of complete reworking and integration into the DBMS core, in accordance with SQL/XML standard. Initial XML type support will be included into the next release of PostgreSQL v.8.3.

We will describe the current accomplishments illustrated by usage examples, comprising comprehensive mechanism of querying metadata for complex scientific datasets, developed for and used by the International Virtual Observatory. We will review plans of further development of Postgres XML type, in particular, indexing approaches and XQuery support as well as other issues that may arise on the road to XML type.