Multidimensional XPath

Abstract

In Web applications it is often required to manipulate information of semistructured nature, which may present variations according to different circumstances. Multidimensional XML (MXML) is an extension of XML suitable for representing data that assume different facets, having different value and structure, under different contexts. In this paper, we consider the problem of navigating and querying MXML. Navigating and querying must take into account the additional features of MXML compared to XML. Those features stem from the incorporation of context into MXML. We introduce an extension of XPath called Multidimensional XPath (MXPath), which is suitable for navigating in MXML documents, and allows for context-aware querying. We present the syntax of MXPath, we provide examples demonstrating its use and investigate its semantics.