eXtensible Markup Language (XML) has been the de facto standard of data representation and exchange over the Web. In addition, imprecise and uncertain data are inherent in the real world. Although fuzzy data have been extensively investigated in the context of the relational model, the classical relational database model and its fuzzy extension to date do not satisfy the need of modeling complex objects with imprecision and uncertainty on the Web. On the basis of possibility theory, this paper concentrates on fuzzy information modeling in the fuzzy XML model and the fuzzy IFO model. In particular, the formal approach to mapping a fuzzy IFO model to a fuzzy document-type definition model is developed.fuzzy IFO model, fuzzy sets, fuzzy XML, mapping 1 | INTRODUCTION Database models are applied to deal with data in the real world. Traditionally, we can identify two major categories of database models: logical database models (eg, the relational databases, the object-oriented databases, and object-relational databases) and conceptual data models. The conceptual data models, for example, the entity-relationship (ER) model 1 and the enhanced/ extended ER (EER) model, 2 are typically graphic data models, which can abstract data at a high level. The conceptual data models are extensively applied for graphical design of logical database models. Large-scaled databases are generally designed by first developing a high-level conceptual data model (eg, ER model), and then the developed conceptual model is mapped to an actual implementation. 3 In addition to the ER/EER data models, several other data models, such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML) class diagram 4 and the IFO data model, are widely used as conceptual data models. Here the IFO data model proposed in Reference 5 is a formal semantic database model, which incorporates the fundamental principles of semantic database modeling within a graph-based representational framework. Being a kind of the semantic data models, the IFO model can be applied for graphic construction of logical databases also.The rapid development of Web technique and the wide popularity of Web-based applications have resulted in a large number of Web data available and this poses a requirement on managing data on the Web. eXtensible Markup Language (XML) 6 is the de facto standard of data representation and exchange on the Web, which provides a Web friendly and wellunderstood syntax for the exchange of data and impacts on data definition and share on Web. With a tremendous increase in the amount of XML data available on the Web, it is essential to efficiently and effectively manage XML data. At this end, it is necessary to integrate XML and databases. 7 Various logical database models, including relational, object-oriented, and objectrelational databases, have been used for mapping to and from the XML data model. In addition, conceptual data models are generally used to describe data paradigms first and then transformed into an XML encoded format. In Reference, 8 for example, UML is used for de...