An Event-Condition-Action Language for XML

Abstract

XML is now a widespread means of exchanging and storing information on the Web. Event-condition-action (ECA) rules are a natural candidate for the support of reactive functionality on XML repositories. This chapter discusses ECA rules in the context of XML data. We give a review of related work, and then define a language for specifying ECA rules on XML repositories. We specify the rule execution model of our language and describe a prototype implementation. We also discuss techniques for analysing the behaviour of sets of ECA rules, in particular for determining the triggering and activation relationships between pairs of rules. We conclude with a discussion of some directions for further r..