BY
Scott Mitchell
IntroductionLet's face it, one of the primary tasks we, as Web developers, are faced with is querying data from some data store and allowing users to view and / or manipulate the information via a Web interface. Typically, the data stores that we query from are traditional relational databases, like Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle. with relational databases, the de facto means for querying data is SQL. However, with the ever-continuing rise in the popularity of Web services, and the need for a platform-independent, Internet-transferable data representation format, XML data stores are becoming more and more popular. SQL was never designed for querying semi-structured data stores, and therefore is not suitable for querying XML data stores. (for more information on creating and using Web services In ASP.NET Be Sure To read: Creating and consuming a web service. for more information on xml be sad the xml faq category on aspfaqs.com.)
