Chapter 25: Getting Started with Oracle XML and PL/SQL
Overview
PL/SQL is Oracle’s procedural language extension to SQL. The PL/SQL XML support allows Oracle DBAs and database application developers to process XML data within the Oracle database. In Oracle Database 10g, in addition to the PL/SQL packages that generate XML, store XML, and manage the XML DB Repository, three built-in XML PL/SQL packages are available that provide application programatic interfaces:
DBMS_XMLPARSER Provides the PL/SQL XML parser APIs for parsing XML documents
DBMS_XMLDOM Provides the PL/SQL DOM 1.0 and 2.0 APIs for accessing and updating XML documents
DBMS_XSLPROCESSOR Provides the PL/SQL XSLT Processing APIs for transforming XML documents into other text formats using XSLT
In this chapter, we work through examples that show you how to parse XML, retrieve XML data, and transform XML documents using PL/SQL in Oracle Database 10g. At the end of the chapter, we discuss how to set up Oracle JVM to further enable Java XML programming within the Oracle database.