Bryant Likes

This talk covered what's new in System.Xml in Whidbey. There have been quite a few performance enhancements and usability improvements that will make working with XML faster and easier. Plus SqlXml has been integrated into the System.Xml stack. I'm not sure if people made the connection, but this means that SqlXml is now using fully managed code and not the COM Interop code that is provided with SqlXml 3.0.

Performance Improvements

• lots of them. I got in too late to write them all down.
• 4x XSLT performance (I did get this one)

Usability Improvements

• XmlFactory - looks very cool.

XmlDocument is Dead!

• XPathDocument - A better XML DOM replaces it. (In PDC bits it's XPathDocument2)
• 20%-40% faster!
• XPathEditor - uses an XmlWriter to edit the XML.
• Strongly typed!

XQuery

• The “DeathStar“ of XML. It will destroy everything in its path. “XPath++” :)
• Better syntax, strongly typed, can do joins, comprehensive functions...
• All XPath statements still work.
• Uses FLWOR (For/Let/Where/Order by/Return)
• The demo made this look easy. Very well done.

SqlXml

• SqlXml 3.0 migrated into ADO.NET.
• Query language is XQuery (via XQueryProcessor (Command))
• Uses XML Views (via XmlViewSchema)
• Now called “SqlXml in ADO.NET“.
• Stream XML from relational tables into middle tier.
• Scenarios: application evolves with XML schema (FinXML), source and sink for XML (B2B), streaming XML into relational tables (RSS feeds).
• Middle-Tier XML views - declarative syntax for mapping between XML and relational data. Supports command database design patterns (stored procs). This is the same mapping technology used in Object Spaces.

Disconnected Scenarios

• XmlAdapter - like SqlDataAdapter, fills an XPathDocument from SQL Server, updates the changes back to SQL Server using autogenerated update statements. Very nice!
• XmlBulkLoad - streaming update for XML into SQL Server using an XmlReader with an XML View. This should solve a lot of the XML BulkLoading issues associated with SqlXml 3.0. (large and small docs)

Xml Editor Enhancements

• Quite a few XML Editor enhancements....