What is XQuery?
XQuery is to XML what SQL is to databases.
XQuery is designed to query XML data.
XQuery Example
for $x in doc("books.xml")/bookstore/book
where $x/price>30
order by $x/title
return $x/title
What is XQuery?
XQuery is the language for querying XML data
XQuery for XML is like SQL for databases
XQuery is built on XPath expressions
XQuery is supported by all major databases
XQuery is a W3C Recommendation
XQuery is About Querying XML
XQuery is a language for finding and extracting elements and attributes
from XML documents.
Here is an example of what XQuery could solve:
"Select all CD records with a price less than $10 from the CD collection
stored in cd_catalog.xml"
XQuery and XPath
XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 share the same data model and support the
same functions and operators. If you have already studied XPath you will
have no problems with understanding XQuery.
XQuery - Examples of Use
XQuery can be used to:
Extract information to use in a Web Service
Generate summary reports
Transform XML data to XHTML
Search Web documents for relevant information
XQuery is a W3C
Recommendation
XQuery is compatible with several W3C standards, such as XML,
Namespaces, XSLT, XPath, and XML Schema.
XQuery 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation in 2007.
The XML Example Document
We will use the following XML document in the examples below.
"books.xml":
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<bookstore>
<book category="COOKING">
<title lang="en">Everyday Italian</title>
<author>Giada De Laurentiis</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>30.00</price>
</book>
<book category="CHILDREN">
<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
<author>J K. Rowling</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>29.99</price>
</book>
<book category="WEB">
<title lang="en">XQuery Kick Start</title>
<author>James McGovern</author>
<author>Per Bothner</author>
<author>Kurt Cagle</author>
<author>James Linn</author>
<author>Vaidyanathan Nagarajan</author>
<year>2003</year>
<price>49.99</price>
</book>
<book category="WEB">
<title lang="en">Learning XML</title>
<author>Erik T. Ray</author>
<year>2003</year>
<price>39.95</price>
</book>
</bookstore>
How to Select Nodes From
"books.xml"?
Functions
XQuery uses functions to extract data from XML documents.
The doc() function is used to open the "books.xml" file:
doc("books.xml")
Path Expressions
XQuery uses path expressions to navigate through elements in an XML
document.
The following path expression is used to select all the title elements in the
"books.xml" file:
doc("books.xml")/bookstore/book/title
(/bookstore selects the bookstore element, /book selects all the book
elements under the bookstore element, and /title selects all the title
elements under each book element)
The XQuery above will extract the following:
<title lang="en">Everyday Italian</title>
<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
<title lang="en">XQuery Kick Start</title>
<title lang="en">Learning XML</title>
Predicates
XQuery uses predicates to limit the extracted data from XML documents.
The following predicate is used to select all the book elements under the
bookstore element that have a price element with a value that is less
than 30:
doc("books.xml")/bookstore/book[price<30]
The XQuery above will extract the following:
<book category="CHILDREN">
<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
<author>J K. Rowling</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>29.99</price>
</book>
