Is XPATH the way to search a data model?

[David Berry]

Ed,

> The registry provides the queryable terms.

I was not really thinking of registry searches so much as, say, searching
a specific Quantity.

> A translation service is
> needed between the query generation and the transmissions to each data
> center according to the data centers registered terms.  The XPATH, as
> far as I am aware, is only used at the last stage of extracting info
> from the internal meta-database.  So, yes we need a general model to
> allow such transformations service to be built.  But, eventually you
> need a mechanism of getting info out of metadata stored or transmitted
> as XML, this is always XPATH based (ie XSL, XQUERY, XQL, etc are based
> on XPATH).


But once the XML has be de-serialised into an in-memory structure why not
use class methods which have intimate knowledge of the semantic meaning
of the class properties and can therefore do more intelligent decisions?
XML is just a dumb way of marking up text - why is it being seen as the
answer to all VO problems?

David