The original version of this spec considered XPATH V1.0 support. We discussed this option more out of desperation than anything else. XPATH V1.0 at least existed and was widely used even if it is, in my opinion, an extremely difficult to understand and use query language. I remember adapting XPATH V1.0 to BPEL. Even though this required me to crawl deep inside the XPATH V1.0 data model I'm still, to this day, confused about some of XPATH's details.

All of the major relational database vendors have announced various plans to support XQuery technologies in their upcoming major product releases, including Oracle10g, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (Yukon) and an upcoming release of IBM DB/2. However, these XQuery implementations are all bound their own platform.

DataDirect XQuery supports the W3C Candidate Recommendation 3 November 2005 of the XQuery specification located at: http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-xquery-20050404.

We've compiled a short list of ten simple things you can do to help the cause, and there's as well free XQuery resources in the XQuery activist kit. Well, that's not really a question, but we understand Microsoft (as any product company) has a release schedule to keep. We still hope that Microsoft would commit to supporting XQuery in some in future point release of the .NET Framework in the next year or two.

XML text files/streams. These files/streams can be accessed using fn:doc( ), which supports the http:, ftp:, and file: URI schemes and Stylus Studio XML Deployment Adapter URI schemes. Here is an example of a Stylus Studio XML Deployment Adapter URI scheme in which the name of the Adapter is Base64, the properties set for the conversion are newline and encoding, and the file to convert is base_to_xml.

Since the release of its version 4.1, Tamino XML Server supports an XML database relevant subset of W3C's XQuery proposal besides its earlier implemented own query mechanism, named Tamino X-Query. The latter is based on the familiar XML Path Language (XPath) and is tailored exactly to the singularities of the native XML format.

A recent world-wide survey of software developers found that the top four reasons for using XQuery were that it simplifies data access and transformation, has a more concise and easier-to-read syntax, can aggregate and manipulate data from different sources, and for its flexibility in working with relational and non-relational data sources. Other reasons that came up frequently included greater performance, flexibility, and the need for standards based approach to XML data integration.

a standard-based technology, there are several XQuery implementations available for XML developers. DataDirect XQuery is the only Java-based implementation of XQuery and the XQuery API for Java (XQJ) which enables you to execute and process XQuery expressions against any of the major relational databases, and you can download a free trial today.

No. In fact, XQuery is thriving. Several recently released developer studies by Evans Data Corporation, DataDirect, and DevX, in addition to real-world use-cases all point to tremendous momentum behind the XQuery standard, from both vendors and end-users, all in anticipation of the official W3C XQuery recommendation, which is expected to be finalized soon.

The jury is still out on best practices surrounding using SPARQL compared to other query languages. Some benefits of SPARQL include: Implicit join syntax. SPARQL queries RDF graphs, which consist of various triples expressing binary relations between resources, by specifying a subgraph with certain resources replaced by variables.

XQuery is a joint effort being undertaken by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) â?" the XQuery standard committee includes representatives of the world's largest software vendors including Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, BEA, DataDirect Technologies and many other companies. The entire software world is on board this exciting new technology â?" a historically rare occasion for our industry.

XQuery expression where you write out in a declarative syntax, the underlying XQuery instructions to be evaluated. XQuery processor that executes the XQuery expression that you wrote â?" this can be a stand-alone component or some database vendors include embedded XQuery processing capabilities Building an XQuery application then involves putting this all together using the right components and tools.

Stylus Studio features a full arsenal of powerful XQuery tools, including a robust XQuery editor, an integrated XQuery debugger that lets you step through and troubleshoot XQuery expressions, a visual XQuery mapper for visually designing XQuery expressions, and an XQuery profiler for benchmarking and performance tuning XQuery expressions.

Native XML databases have been around for years now and are enthusiastically adding XQuery interfaces into their XML repositories.

It's an official W3C Recommendation as of January, 2007. A recent interview with Dr. Daniela Florescu, the editor-in-chief of the XQuery specification describes the magnitude of the challenges involved in creating the XQuery specification and talks about planned future work to address other exciting issues such as XQuery update functionality, an XQuery stored procedure language and an XQuery full text search.

The fastest way is to learn XQuery is to try it out yourself, and its really easy to get started. By downloading Stylus Studio, which includes a built-in XQuery processor. You'll be able to write XQuery expressions using a robust XQuery editor and then execute it with a single click, then analyze the output. You can troubleshoot XQuery problems using the debugger by setting breakpoints and stepping through the XQuery expression line by line.

Some of the most popular XQuery development forums include the Stylus Studio Developer Network XQuery Help and Discussion forum and the XQuery Talk mailing list. Stylus Studio's powerful and easy-to-use WYSIWYG ("What you see is what you get") XSLT Designer lets you create XSLT stylesheets without writing any code! Go from a blank slate to solid, robust XSLT in minutes, using simple drag-and-drop operations.

We've compiled a list of frequently asked questions concerning licensing and extending an evaluation license, pricing, packages, oXygen XML Editor, DataDirect JDBC, and developer versions of DataDirect XQuery™ 3.0. If you have a question that is not addressed here, please refer to the DataDirect XQuery™ 3.0 Customer Service page for more information.

Technically, yes. The Saxon.NET project at SourceForge is an ongoing effort to convert the existing Java-based code of the open-source Saxon processor to the .NET platform. However there many problems with this approach: Simply re-compiling Java files into .NET Assemblies is no substitute for an XQuery processor and API built from the ground up in C# and is a far cry from the level of engineering effort that went into optomizing and testing MSXML 4.0. Saxon is primarily an XSLT 1.0/2.

The benefits of Java are well-known. It lets you write applications that work on any operating system, and the J2EE platform provides robust support for XML, security, web services, and database connectivity. Embedding XQuery in Java applications can significantly reduce the amount of Java code that is needed, because XQuery often is easier to use and more efficient than Java for processing XML or querying relational data to create XML.

Web Services depend heavily on XML for both its definition language, Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and its messaging protocol, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). XQuery provides a language that can interact with XML data and other types of data as long as they can be represented as XML. For example, XQuery can be used to access the content of messages or to construct new messages to be passed to a Web service. In addition, you often need data to process Web Services results.

DataDirect XQuery is the first embeddable component for XQuery that implements the XQuery API for Java (XQJ). It supports all major relational databases on any Java platform. DataDirect XQuery allows you to query XML, relational databases, or a combination of the two, integrating the results for XML-based data exchange, XML-driven Web sites, and other applications that require or leverage the power of XML.

The W3C maintains a home page for XQuery, including pointers to the XQuery specifications, tutorials, and a variety of products, at http://www.w3.org/XML/Query.html. The XQJ standard (JSR 225) is being developed under the Java Community Process. For more information, see http://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=225. Information about XQuery and DataDirect XQuery can be found at http://www.datadirect.com/products/xquery/index.ssp. Learn the basics of XQuery. See the XQuery tutorial at http://www.

Information about DataDirect XQuery can be found at http://www.datadirect.com/products/xquery/index.ssp. JDBC Drivers | ODBC Drivers | ADO.NET Data Providers | XQuery | XML Converters | XML IDE | Mainframe Integration

The XQuery language provides many powerful features that make queries simpler to write and use, but that are also redundant. For instance, a complex for expression might be rewritten as a composition of several simple for expressions. The language composed of these simpler expressions is called the XQuery Core Language and is described by a grammar that is a subset of the XQuery grammar. In other words, XQuery Core grammar is a subset of the grammar exposed to the user.