A method includes receiving a request to store an extensible markup language (XML) document in a repository. The XML document includes a plurality of markup elements. The method includes extracting a plurality of nodes from the XML document. Each node corresponds to a respective one of the plurality of markup elements, and the plurality of nodes are stored in a same memory block. The method further includes determining a set of memory requirements for each node. Each set of memory requirements includes a first memory space required to store a respective node, a second memory space required to store a set of direct child nodes of the respective node, and a third memory space required to store all descendant nodes of the respective node. The method includes storing each node in respective records in the repository based on each corresponding set of memory requirements for each node.