all excellent pointers!

apologies for not being more specific, but am less concerned with *how* to get & export the data -
am really looking for advice on building some sort of data-dictionary mapping between XML and the DB
which can be used to auto-build the get/export routines, however they may end up implemented.

It seems like a sensible shortcut to me, but if no-one has already done similar, I must have overlooked a glaring flaw?!