BML: A Data Mapping Language for Blockchain Platforms

Abstract

Currently, all blockchain-based applications conduct two primary operations, i.e., writing data on blockchain networks and reading these data from the networks. These tasks require users to have considerable knowledge in blockchain technology, and they become even more challenging if users want to utilize different blockchain platforms to write and read data. So far, we have not had a uniform mechanism to perform write and read operations on various blockchain platforms. In addition, writing a huge amount of data on blockchain networks is a time-consuming task and requires considerable transaction fees. To address these issues, we present in the paper a data mapping language named BML. BML allows developers to uniformly define mappings for data transformation from traditional data storage mechanisms into blockchain networks. Conversely, this language also assists users in reading transformed data. Currently, BML accepts five input data sources, including XML, JSON, XLSX, SQL (relational database), NoSQL, and supports two output platforms, including Hyperledger Sawtooth and Ethereum.