Abstract: Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to creating, maintaining, and using relationships between items. In aspects, items such as files, folders, and other objects may be stored in a data store. A user may desire to form a relationship between two items that provides additional semantic information regarding the relationship. To do so, an instance of an item reference is created and populated with data that associates the item reference with a source item and optionally a target item. The item reference is part of a type hierarchy and inherits properties from ancestor types. These types are included in a payload of the item reference and may be exposed to programs that seek to obtain information about the relationship indicated by the item reference. An item reference may be added without changing other data about the referenced items.

Abstract: Systems for parsing an XML data stream are described. In one embodiment, the system is configured to receive an XML data stream comprising one or more element tags and determine whether an element tag contains a namespace declaration. The system creates one or more namespace objects if an element tag contains one or more respective namespace declarations, each namespace object corresponding to one namespace declaration. The system associates namespace objects with one another if more than one namespace object is created and associates each namespace object with a dictionary that contains one or more entries that are associated with an element tag.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method of parsing an XML data stream comprises receiving an XML data stream containing a namespace prefix and an associated element tag name. The element tag name is associated with an element tag. The namespace prefix and the element tag name are converted into a token that uniquely represents a namespace specification that is associated with the namespace prefix and the element tag. A stack is defined and is configured to receive one or more tokens during parsing of the XML data stream. Parsing of the XML data stream is performed without requiring an XML tree structure comprising an XML document embodied by the XML data stream, to be built.

Abstract: Various features enable an XML data stream to be parsed without the need to build a hierarchical tree structure for the XML document. In the described embodiment, the concept of an element or namespace stack is utilized as a way of organizing parsing activities and maintaining a definable place within the structure of the XML document. Various structures work together with the element or namespace stack to facilitate piecewise parsing of the XML data stream. One structure is a namespace hierarchy that is a collection of namespace objects that each represent a namespace specification that is encountered in the XML data stream. Each object includes a namespace prefix and an associated namespace specification. This structure creates a hierarchical organization that is used for mapping a particular encountered namespace specification into a unique value that represents both the namespace specification and an element tag in which the namespace specification occurs.