The new Build 4 of M/DB:X transforms it into something very exciting and wholly unique. M/DB:X is now not only a Native XML Database. By now also supporting JSON strings as inputs and optionally outputting its responses as JSON strings instead of XML, M/DB:X is now a JSON/XML hybrid database.

What's the significance of this? Well there are several important consequences:

If you feed a JSON string into M/DB:X's Parse Action, it will convert the JSON object into a corresponding XML DOM and store it. Now in XML DOM format, all the standard M/DB:X XML DOM API methods can be used to modify and manipulate what was originally a Javascript object, and the XML DOM can be searched using XPath. This is a very cool capability and extremely powerful.

The DOM can be returned in JSON format: M/DB:X will convert any XML DOM into a corresponding JSON object.

This now places M/DB:X in esteemed company: for example CouchDB and Persevere. JSON is increasingly being used as the lingua franca for describing objects, not just Javascript objects.

And unlike CouchDB which is still an alpha-grade Apache project, M/DB:X is underpinned by the tried and tested GT.M database with its solid commercial pedigree in the demanding banking industry.

The M/DB:X documentation will be updated to reflect the new JSON capability as soon as possible, but Build 4 is available for immediate download and use.

Watch this space for the next step which will be a mechanism for requesting a temporary secure token to allow restricted access to M/DB:X directly from a browser. This will allow M/DB:X to act as a persistent Javascript object store without the need for an intermediate proxy layer (except to make the authenticated request for a token). This is what CouchDB is aspiring to be but they're still struggling, it seems, with the security layer!

Oh and just for good measure, if you add the name/value pair OutputFormat=JSON to M/DB, it too will output its responses as JSON rather than the standard Amazon SimpleDB format XML !

See http://www.mgateway.com/mdbx.html for full details and documentation.

Furthermore, renowned XML database guru Ronald Bourret has added M/DB:X to his definitive list of Native XML Databases.