xml - assemblying entities

[Kay Campbell]

I am a newcomer to this XML technology - weeks old - and I am trying to find some info on the web that will help me assemble a set of external entities depending on some conditions.  Here is what I am trying to accomplish.  

My document has over 400 long sections so I have split it up into 400 entities.  Now at any date in time, any of the sections may change and I would be required to keep the sections as it was and in its modified state.  Say, for example, section 40 was first modified on Jan 12, 1999 then it was modified on June 05, 1999.  I wouldn't overwrite the Jan 12, 1999 entity with the modifications that occured on Jun 05.  What I would do is to make a copy of the original Jan 12 entity as a new entity with the Jun 05 modifications.  This is because at any point in time I might want to view the document as it was at a particular point in time.  

That means that if I asked for the document as at Jan 31, 1999 - I should assemble all the sections whose "date identifier"  is equal to Jan 31 or the closest one less than that date.

Is there a way, to index XML entities based on multiple identifiers/ elements so that I can dynamically put together only the entities that I need?

Note that I may have 16 such documents all split up into its respective entities so in putting the document together I would need to be able to identify from the mixed set of entities, the document, the date of last modification, etc.  What related to an entity would allow me to make these distinctions and how would I use this to manipulate the entities?


Wayne Walker
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