Beginning XML, 5th Edition

Chapter 9

XQuery

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER:

• Why you should learn XQuery
• How XQuery uses and extends XPath
• Introduction to the XQuery language
• How to make and search an XML database
• When to use XQuery and when to use XSLT
• The future of XQuery, and how to learn more

XQuery is a language for searching and manipulating anything that can be represented as a tree using the XQuery and XPath Data Model (the “XDM” that you heard about in Chapter 7, “Extracting Data from XML”). XQuery programs (or expressions as they are called) can access multiple documents, or even multiple databases, and extract results very efficiently.

XQuery builds on and extends XPath. This means that XQuery’s syntax is like XPath and not XML element–based like XSLT.

In this chapter you will learn all about this XQuery language: what it is and how to use it. You will also learn some rough guidelines for when to use XQuery, when to use XSLT, and when to use both, in Chapter 19, “Case Study: XML in Publishing.” The short story is that XSLT is often best if you expect to process entire XML documents from start to finish and XQuery is often best if you are processing only part of a document, if you work with the same document repeatedly, or if you are processing a large number of documents.

XQUERY, XPATH, AND XSLT

XQuery, XPath, and XSLT share a lot of components. The best way to break down the various relationships though is this: where XSLT uses XPath — for example, in match expressions and in <xslt:value-of> ...