Executive Summary
Today the data structure transformation terminology of Restructuring and Reshaping are used interchangeably for XML structure transformation processes. There are two basic types of XML hierarchical data structure transformations that need to be distinguished because they are different in meaning, results, and use. These are restructuring controlled by existing relationships in the data, and reshaping controlled by the semantics of the current data structure. Restructuring is performed by using new and unused relationships to restructure the data. On the other hand, reshaping uses the semantics of the current structure to mold the structure into any other shape without requiring or relying on any data relationships in the data. The processing follows correct hierarchical semantics principles to derive correct hierarchical results.