Avoiding redundant XML data

Question

I have a large number of instance documents with a structure much like this:
<dataset>
     <processInformation>     
          <dataEntryBy person="42"/>     
          <person number="42" name="Joe Lastname" address="Goethestr. 10" telephone="0049 177 555 8787" email="[email protected]"/>     
          <person number="18" name="Sam Other" address="8422 King Rd." telephone="001 713 555 4774" email="[email protected]"/>     
     </processInformation>
     <someothercontent>
     </someothercontent>
</dataset>
The person's number attribute is a key used to reference the person elsewhere in the document.
Now when I specifiy in my schema that I want the <person> elements to be stored in an extra table using xdb:SQLInline="false", XML DB will generate a person table and put all the <person> elements in there.
My problem is: how can I avoid that I get duplicate entries in that auto-generated person table, but instead the already existing record is referenced when I insert an instance document that contains a person that is already in the person table? Does anyone know if there a more elegant way than manually separating the <person> from the instance document, performing checks and inserting it into the person table?
Thanks,
Oli

Answer 1

Hi Oliver
To avoid duplicates in the nested table you should create a unique index on it.
But on my opinion is not possible to reuse the already stored elements...
Therefore, if you want to avoid duplicate, you should split the information in two separate tables and then define a foreign key.
Chris