Hi, gang.
I'm working on a database app that generates web content for third-party sites. The same general content is often pushed to multiple (between 3 and 10) third-party sites. These 3rd party partner sites accept content in various ways: some through flat text feeds, some through XML, etc. For the same general submission, each partner requires (slightly) different data in a slightly different format (some take two fields, some three or four; some take wider lines, some shorter; etc). On my side, I store the generic submission concept in our database. What I also want to store is, for each specific submission, the actual submission sent to each partner. There's no hope I could get the partners to agree on a standard submission format; I'm stuck with catering to each of their particularities.
Here are the options I've considered:

• Have a table 'submitted', and try to cram the various partners in one table using a variety of dedicated and semi-dedicated columns. This seems bad as the format varies by partner, so the modules using this table will have to hardcode logic like 'For partner1, don't use col7', etc. Yuck.
• Have a table for each partner. While this allows me to keep the right structure for each partner, it makes the joins a mess. Yuck.
• Store all the submissions in one table in using chunks of XML, letting the XML handle the partner-specific structure. Possible.
• Store all the submissions in one table in using chunks of perl code, letting the perl code generate and describe the partner-specific structure. Yuck. Storing perl in a database seems wrong.

Any suggestions from the gang most highly appreciated.
And if XML is the way to go, any comments on smart vs. dumb ways to encode via XML appreciated.

Thanks

nop

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