Active rules for XML: A new paradigm for e-services

XML is rapidly becoming one of the most widely adopted technologies for inf ormation exchange and representation. As the use of XML becomes more widesp read, we foresee the development of active XML rules, i.e., rules explicitl y designed for the management of XML information. In particular, we argue t hat active rules for XML offer a natural paradigm for the rapid development of innovative e-services. In the paper, we show how active rules can be sp ecified in the context of XSLT, a pattern-based language for publishing XML documents (promoted by the W3C) which is receiving strong commercial suppo rt, and Lorel, a query language for XML documents that is quite popular in the research world. We demonstrate, through simple examples of active rules for XSLT and Lorel, that active rules can be effective for the implementat ion of e-commerce services. We also discuss the various issues that need to be considered in adapting the notion of relational triggers to the XML con text.