Geodatabase XML

The geodatabase defines a generic model for geographic information and is implemented as either a collection of files in a file system or a collection of tables in an RDBMS. The benefit of this generic model is that the geodatabase and its contents are multipurpose, shareable, and standards based.

Geodatabase XML represents ESRI's open mechanism for information exchange between geodatabases and other external systems. ESRI openly publishes and maintains the complete geodatabase schema and content as an XML specification and provides sample implementations to illustrate how users can share data updates between homogeneous systems.

XML interchange of geospatial information to and from the geodatabase is greatly simplified using the geodatabase XML specification. External applications can receive XML data streams including

• Exchange of complete lossless datasets
• Interchange of simple feature sets (similar to shapefile interchange)
• Exchange of change-only (delta) record sets using XML streams to pass updates and changes among geodatabases and other external data structures
• Exchange and sharing of full or partial geodatabase schemas between ArcGIS users