What are the potential pitfalls of storing XML data in a relational database like MySQL?

Storing XML data in a relational database like MySQL can lead to difficulties in querying and manipulating the data, as relational databases are optimized for tabular data structures. To overcome this issue, consider parsing the XML data into a more structured format before storing it in the database, such as converting it into JSON or storing it in separate tables with a defined schema. 

// Example code snippet to parse XML data into JSON before storing in MySQL

$xmlData = '<data><item>1</item><item>2</item><item>3</item></data>';
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xmlData);
$json = json_encode($xml);

// Store the JSON data in MySQL
$query = "INSERT INTO xml_data (json_data) VALUES ('$json')";
mysqli_query($connection, $query);

Keywords

XML relational database MySQL data storage data retrieval

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