Do you think XML will ever replace databases? Why or why not?

Question

Do you think XML will ever replace databases? Why or why not?

Answer 1

While XML "can" be used in a way to simulate a database's functionality, and most definitely can be used to store large amounts of data, no it will never, ever, in a million years replace the requirement of databases.



Databases are optimized for speed, efficiency, optimization and diversity. Reading from an XML file is simply too slow and not nearly robust or extensible enough. Even if someone was to create an xml-based implementation to mimic the functionality of standard database software, it wouldn't be able to compete with speed. It's just too slow to parse and query against.

Answer 2

I don't believe that XML will ever replace databases because databases are for large amounts of storage where there may be many many records. XML files are better suited for smaller datasets that you want to be able to read in human-readable form in a text-editor.



XML and databases are two different tools for two different purposes.

Answer 3

XML Will never replace the databases. XML is way to represent a structured data. With the help of XSD it xml can be used to pass the structured data in a common protocol.



Where as database is a data store. It helps to quick and easy access of the data.