将oracle数据库转换为xml

Question

I have a relational database in Oracle.

I would like to convert this database to xml. For example, I have a table in Oracle like the following one: (that's a very simple example,in my database there is no table like that)

 TABLE: PERSON
 ----------------------------------------------------
 ID | NAME | DESCRIPTION
 ----------------------------------------------------
 1  | George | Employee
 2  | Mary   | Student
 3  | Joe    | Employee
-------------------------------------------------------

The xml output would be

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<persons>
  <person>
    <ID>1</ID>
    <NAME>George</NAME>
    <DESCRIPTION>Employee</DESCRIPTION>
  </person>
  <person>
    <ID>2</ID>
    <NAME>Mary</NAME>
    <DESCRIPTION>Student</DESCRIPTION>
  </person>
  <person>
    <ID>3</ID>
    <NAME>Joe</NAME>
    <DESCRIPTION>Employee</DESCRIPTION>
  </person>
</persons>

Which is the best way to make the conversion?

1) Shall i do it on my own?

a) Create my own xsd schema based on the database's design b) Create my own mechanism that is going to create xml documents automatically by selecting and joining the tables.

OR

2) Shall i use an online tool in order to make that conversion? And if it is yes, which are the best ones for that conversion?

Thanks, in advance

Answer 1

Directly by the oracle engine:

select xmlelement( "PERSON", xmlforest( id, name, description ) ) 
from PERSON;    

Answer 2

Oracle provides built-in functionality for this:

with v_data as (
  select 1 as id, 'George' as name, 'Employee' as description from dual union all
  select 2 as id, 'Mary' as name, 'Student' as description from dual union all
  select 3 as id, 'Joe' as name, 'Employee' as description from dual)
select 
  xmlelement("Persons", 
    xmlagg(
      xmlelement("Person", 
        xmlforest(e.id, e.name, e.description)
      ) 
     order by id)
  ) as "Person list"
from v_data e

Depending on you real data, you might want to use an incremental approach using DBMS_XMLGEN or similar, see Oracle XML DB Developer's Guide

Answer 3

If you are using any programming languages like Java, you can use any Object Relational Mapping framework like JPA/Hibernate/etc. and serialize mapped objects to xml using JAXB or XStream or any other xml serializing APIs.

If you would like to do manually, tools like Altova MapForce also be used if you can afford

http://www.altova.com/mapforce/database-mapping.html