Evaluating GML support for spatial databases

This work presents a study on Geography Markup Language (GML), the issues that arise from using GML for spatial databases and solutions that have been proposed. We concentrate on three aspects of GML, including storage, parsing, and querying. GML is an XML encoding for storing geographic data. It has been developed by the OpenGIS as a medium for uniform geographic data storage and exchange among diverse applications. The underlying concepts of XML therefore can also be applied to GML data. This results in both advantages and disadvantages, which are discussed In the work. GML is a comparatively new language in the field of geographic information systems and still in its developmental stage. Most of the data processing techniques need to be further developed in order for GML to be an efficient medium for geographic data storage and processing.