Search-Based Evolution of XML Schemas

Authors

  • Julio Cesar Teodoro Silva Department of Informatics, Federal University of Paraná, CP 19081, CEP 81531-970 Curitiba-PR
  • Aurora Trinidad Ramirez Pozo Department of Informatics, Federal University of Paraná, CP 19081, CEP 81531-970 Curitiba-PR
  • Silvia Regina Vergilio Department of Informatics, Federal University of Paraná, CP 19081, CEP 81531-970 Curitiba-PR
  • Martin A. Musicante Department of Informatics and Applied Mathematics, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, CP 1647, CEP 59000-000 Natal-RN

Keywords:

XML-based applications, DTD, LL parsing

Abstract

The use of schemas makes an XML-based application more reliable, since they contribute to avoid failures by defining the specific format for the data that the application manipulates. In practice, when an application evolves, new requirements for the data may be established, raising the need of schema evolution. In some cases the generation of a schema is necessary, if such schema does not exist. To reduce maintenance and reengineering costs, automatic evolution of schemas is very desirable. However, there are no algorithms to satisfactorily solve the problem. To help in this task, this paper introduces a search-based approach that explores the correspondence between schemas and context-free grammars. The approach is supported by a tool, named EXS. Our tool implements algorithms of grammatical inference based on LL(1) Parsing. If a grammar (that corresponds to a schema) is given and a new word (XML document) is provided, the EXS system infers the new grammar that: i) continues to generate the same words as before and ii) generates the new word, by modifying the original grammar. If no initial grammar is available, EXS is also capable of generating a grammar from scratch from a set of samples.

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Published

2012-08-10

How to Cite

Silva, J. C. T., Pozo, A. T. R., Vergilio, S. R., & Musicante, M. A. (2012). Search-Based Evolution of XML Schemas. Computing and Informatics, 31(3), 573–595. Retrieved from https://www.cai.sk/ojs/index.php/cai/article/view/1009

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