Function based indexes on CLOB storage

Question

On a 10gR2 database, with schema-less CLOB storage for an XMLType column:
(1) Can a function based index include a wildcard in the namespace ? Or do I need a new function based index for each specific namespace ?
(2) I must create a new function based index for each different element that I want an indexed search on ?
(3) What limit is there on the number of function based indexes per table ?
(4) I believe XQuery can include a wildcard for namespaces, but XPath 1.x can't. Can I create a function based index using XQuery, rather than XPath ?
Documents conforming to different versions of an XML schema will be present (schema versioning), but I want to search across all documents irrespective of a specific namespace - e.g. "Find any document with reference = 'some Value' , and amount = 1000".
CLOB storage is proposed, due to the need to handle documents from multiple versions of an XML schema. The knowledge of the XSD is not known at development time, but is user definable, and it must be possible to change the structure without system down time. Structured storage is not suitable, due to Oracle's requirement for downtime if the schema changes (CopyEvolve drops/recreates tables), and Oracle doesn't support schema collections, so you can't bind an XML column to multiple schemas.
Here is some sample code of what I'm trying to do:
create table BulkTest
ID NUMBER(10) not null primary key,
USERFIELDS XMLTYPE
create sequence S_BulkTest;
--Document conforming to version 1 of schema
INSERT INTO BulkTest(id, Userfields) VALUES
(S_BulkTest.Nextval,
'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<mt395 xmlns="urn:incident:mt395-1">
     <reference>FH12345678</reference>
     <relatedReference>FH23456789</relatedReference>
     <queries>Here is some query text.</queries>
     <narrative>Here is some narrative text.</narrative>
     <relatedMessageType>300</relatedMessageType>
     <relatedMessageDate>2005-03-29</relatedMessageDate>
     <direction>R</direction>
     <sessionNumber>1234</sessionNumber>
     <isn>123456</isn>
     <relatedMessageDescription>This is the deal where I bought USD 1 million for GBP at 1.76.</relatedMessageDescription>
     <otherParty>232332</otherParty>
</mt395>'
--Document conforming to version 2 of schema
INSERT INTO BulkTest(id, Userfields) VALUES
(S_BulkTest.Nextval,
'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<mt395 xmlns="urn:incident:mt395-2">
     <guid>0f9a08f6-b052-4693-baba-8f7dc881e7e8</guid>
     <reference>333333</reference>
     <queries>Another query</queries>
     <narrative>Some narrative</narrative>
     <direction>R</direction>
     <sessionNumber>1234</sessionNumber>
     <isn>223456</isn>
</mt395>'
--It seems I need to create a new index for each field I want to search on
create index iBulkTest_REFERENCE
on BulkTest
(extractValue(UserFields,'/mt395/reference', 'xmlns="urn:incident:mt395-1"'));
--And that a new index is required for each specifc namespace that is present
--Can't we include a wildcard in the namespace ?
create index iBulkTest_REFERENCE_2
on BulkTest
(extractValue(UserFields,'/mt395/reference', 'xmlns="urn:incident:mt395-2"'));
--If I want to query, I have to explicitly specify each namespace.
--Can't I specify a wildcard ?
--This will make it "fun" querying across namespaces!
select
id,
extractValue(UserFields,'/mt395/reference', 'xmlns="urn:incident:mt395-2"') As Reference,
t.userfields.getclobval() userfields
from bulktest t
WHERE extractValue(UserFields,'/mt395/reference', 'xmlns="urn:incident:mt395-2"') = '333333'

Answer 1

Andy
#1. You do not have scehma versioning here. Your model is totally incorrect. You shoud not change the namespace when versioning the XML Schema. You have 2 different and totally disjoint XML Schemas. The correct was to version, as distinct from evolve an XML Schema is to change the Schema Location Hint associated with your XML...
Eg
INSERT INTO BulkTest(id, Userfields) VALUES
(S_BulkTest.Nextval,
'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<mt395 xmlns="urn:incident:mt395" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="urn:incident:mt395 mt395-1.xsd">
<reference>FH12345678</reference>
<relatedReference>FH23456789</relatedReference>
<queries>Here is some query text.</queries>
<narrative>Here is some narrative text.</narrative>
<relatedMessageType>300</relatedMessageType>
<relatedMessageDate>2005-03-29</relatedMessageDate>
<direction>R</direction>
<sessionNumber>1234</sessionNumber>
<isn>123456</isn>
<relatedMessageDescription>This is the deal where I bought USD 1 million for GBP at 1.76.</relatedMessageDescription>
<otherParty>232332</otherParty>
</mt395>'
--Document conforming to version 2 of schema
INSERT INTO BulkTest(id, Userfields) VALUES
(S_BulkTest.Nextval,
'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<mt395 xmlns="urn:incident:mt395 xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="urn:incident:mt395 mt395-2.xsd">
<guid>0f9a08f6-b052-4693-baba-8f7dc881e7e8</guid>
<reference>333333</reference>
<queries>Another query</queries>
<narrative>Some narrative</narrative>
<direction>R</direction>
<sessionNumber>1234</sessionNumber>
<isn>223456</isn>
</mt395>'
This is the correct way of versioning an XML Schema. THe namespace stays the same, the SchemaLocationHint in the SchemaLocation tag changes.
Bear in mind that if you use the technique you are currently using you will make any path expressions you need to write absolutely unmaintaining and the processing of them very inefficient.
Some questions to consider
Node 'X' in namespace 'X' is never the same as Node 'X' in namespace 'Y'.
How would you write an Xpath or XQuery that targetted multiple versions, but not all versions ?
What happens if you have other documents that are really in a different namespace ? Using wildcards can you differentiate them..
From the problem you are describing and the terminolgy you are using it looks like you've been an early customer of Yukon. MSFT clearly didn't understand schema versioning in the early beta releases and used the 'change the namespace' schema for modelling schema versioning.
We do have some technology coming down the pipe which can address the issue, regardless of whether or not it is too late for you to correct the versioning scheme you have selected. However I cannot discuss that in a public forum. If you want to learn about these features and are prepared to enter an NDA with Oracle in order to do so please contact me directly. You can do this a number of ways...
Guess my email address @oracle.com
Post your email address here and I'll delete the post as soon as I have it..
Update your OTN Forum profile to include your email address
Open a TAR and post the tar number here. You can then softclose the tar as this is simply a method for me to get your contact info.