Re: [xml-dev] How to discover data's "natural" structure?

Have you considered using XML Topic Maps?  Surely the relationships 
you describe form a web rather than a tree.

I hope this helps.

. . . . . . Ken

At 2015-03-01 16:34 +0000, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
>Hi Folks,
>
>XML is well-suited for structuring data into a hierarchy, e.g.,
>
>         Book
>               Chapter
>                     Section
>               Chapter
>                     Section
>               Chapter
>                     Section
>
>JSON is well-suited for structuring data into a set of name-value pairs, e.g.,
>
>         Temperature: 21 degrees
>         Humidity: 52%
>         Precipitation: 10%
>
>or into a list of values, e.g.,
>
>         John, Mary, George, Bill, Susan
>
>or into a combination of the two.
>
>Comma-separated value (CSV) is well-suited for structuring data into 
>a series of columns, e.g.,
>
>         ID,     Name,           Age
>         1,      John,           21
>         2,      Mary,           25
>         3,      George,         30
>
>Recently I have been working on a project to migrate CSV-structured 
>data to XML. But at the back of my mind is a gnawing question: is a 
>hierarchical structuring the data's natural structuring?
>
>Of course any data can be forced into a hierarchical structure; but 
>that doesn't mean it's right.
>
>Does data have an inherent, natural structuring?
>
>Has it been your experience that when data is structured in its 
>natural way, everything feels right: it's easy to understand the 
>data, it's easy to process the data, everything about it is easy?
>
>Perhaps there is no natural structuring of data - the structuring of 
>data is entirely dependent on the processing to be performed on the 
>data. So the processing dictates the structure of the data, not the 
>data itself. Yes? No?
>
>Or, perhaps at some level data seeks to be structured in a certain 
>way, independent of its processing. Yes? No?
>
>Let me give an example (a sketch of an example, actually). In the 
>data that I am currently working with, I have found that the natural 
>structure of the data is as Lego building blocks. Some building 
>blocks must not assemble with certain other building block, else 
>rules of the domain are violated. So there is a kind of repulsion 
>between those building blocks. The data naturally groups into 
>building blocks where some building blocks have an affinity for 
>other building blocks and some building blocks have a repulsion for 
>other building blocks. I am not sure how to design data building 
>blocks that have affinity and repulsion properties. It doesn't seem 
>to fall into any of the structuring categories listed above.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>/Roger


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