Performing Hierarchical Restructuring Using ANSI SQL

his is the third in a series of DevX articles on the new hierarchical XML processing capabilities possible with navigationless database hierarchical processing. The first article covered the basics of processing full multipath hierarchical data queries, while the second article discussed combining hierarchical structures into larger hierarchical structures, and demonstrated a new, powerful, and unlimited way to mashup hierarchical structures. This article delves further into the topic, demonstrating advanced new multipath (nonlinear) hierarchical structure transformations. Like the previous articles, the processing follows correct hierarchical principles to derive correct hierarchical results.

Today, the terms "restructuring" and "reshaping" are used interchangeably for XML structure transformation processes. However, these two basic types of XML hierarchical structure transformations need to be separately distinguished, because they are different in meaning, results, and use.