19 Using Binary XML for C

Prerequisites

This chapter assumes that you are familiar with the XML Parser for C, the basic concepts of binary XML, and the OCI (Oracle Call Interface). For this release, only the OCI API can be used for programming in C with binary XML. A discussion of how to use OCI support for XML is found in the Oracle Call Interface Programmer's Guide, section "OCI Support for XML."

Binary XML Storage Format

Binary XML was introduced in 11g Release 1 (11.1). Binary XML is an optimized format for XML It includes encoding and decoding of XML documents, from text to binary and binary to text.

Binary XML is XML Schema-aware encoding of XML data, but binary XML can also be used for XML data that is not based on an XML schema.

A Binary XML processor is a component that processes and transforms binary XML format into text and XML text into binary XML format.

The mid-tier and client tiers can produce, consume, and process XML in binary XML format. The C application fetches data from the XML DB repository, performs updates on the XML using DOM, and stores it back in the database. Or an XML document is created or input on the client and XSLT, XQuery, and other utilities can be used on it. Then the output XML is saved in XML DB. Further details of concepts and reference pages for OCI functions are described in the Oracle Call Interface Programmer's Guide.