Schema versioning in τXSchema-based multitemporal XML repositories

Abstract

τXSchema [7] is a framework (a language and a suite of tools) for the creation and validation of time-varying XML documents. A τXSchema schema is composed of a conventional XML Schema document annotated with physical and logical annotations. All components of a τXSchema schema (i.e., conventional schema, logical annotations, and physical annotations) can change over time to reflect changes in user requirements or in reference world of the database. Since many applications need to keep track of both data and schema evolution, schema versioning has been long advocated to be the best solution to do this. In this paper, we deal with schema versioning in the τXSchema framework. More precisely, we propose a set of schema change primitives for the maintenance of logical and physical annotations and define their operational semantics.