XQuery By Priscilla Walmsley

Title: XQuery
By Priscilla Walmsley
First Edition March 2007
ISBN 10: 0-596-00634-9
ISBN 13: 9780596006341
Pages: 510




XQuery delivers a carefully paced tutorial that goes into the final 1.0 standard in detail. The book delves into critical advanced issues such as data typing and designing efficient query logic. Whether you're coming from SQL, XSLT, or starting from scratch, you'll learn about XQuery's support for filtering, sorting, and grouping data, as well as how to use FLWR expressions, XPath, and XQuery tools for extracting and combining information.

With the XQuery 1.0 standard, you finally have a tool that will make it much easier to search, extract and manipulate information from XML content stored in databases. This in-depth tutorial not only walks you through the XQuery specification, but also teaches you how to program with this widely anticipated query language.

XQuery is for query writers who have some knowledge of XML basics, but not necessarily advanced knowledge of XML-related technologies. It can be used both as a tutorial, by reading cover to cover, and as a reference, by using the comprehensive index and appendixes. Either way, you will find the background knowledge in namespaces, schemas, built-in types and regular expressions that is relevant to writing XML queries. This book provides:

A high-level overview and quick tour of XQuery
Information to write sophisticated queries, without being bogged down by the details of types, namespaces, and schemas
Advanced concepts for users who want to take advantage of modularity, namespaces, typing and schemas
Guidelines for working with specific types of data, such as numbers, strings, dates, URIs and processing instructions
A complete alphabetical reference to the built-in functions and types
You will also learn about XQuery's support for filtering, sorting, and grouping data, as well as how to use FLWOR expressions, XPath, and XQuery tools for extracting and combining information. With this book, you will discover how to apply all of these tools to a wide variety of data sources, and how to recombine information from multiple sources into a single final output result.

Whether you're coming from SQL, XSLT, or starting from scratch, this carefully paced tutorial takes you through the final 1.0 standard in detail.


Table of Contents

Preface 
1. Introduction to XQuery

      What Is XQuery? 

      Easing into XQuery 

      Path Expressions 

      FLWORs 

      Adding XML Elements and Attributes 

      Functions 

      Joins 

      Aggregating and Grouping Values 
2. XQuery Foundations

      The Design of the XQuery Language 

      XQuery in Context 

      Processing Queries 

      The XQuery Data Model 

      Types 

      Namespaces 
3. Expressions: XQuery Building Blocks

      Categories of Expressions 

      Keywords and Names 

      Whitespace in Queries 

      Literals 

      Variables 

      Function Calls 

      Comments 

      Evaluation Order and Parentheses 

      Comparison Expressions 

      Conditional (if-then-else) Expressions 

      Logical (and/or) Expressions 
4. Navigating Input Documents Using Paths

      Path Expressions 

      Predicates 

      Dynamic Paths 

      Input Documents 

      A Closer Look at Context 
5. Adding Elements and Attributes to Results

      Including Elements and Attributes from the Input Document 

      Direct Element Constructors 

      Computed Constructors 
6. Selecting and Joining Using FLWORs

      Selecting with Path Expressions 

      FLWOR Expressions 

      Quantified Expressions 

      Selecting Distinct Values 

      Joins 
7. Sorting and Grouping

      Sorting in XQuery 

      Grouping 

      Aggregating Values 
8. Functions

      Built-in Versus User-Def ined Functions 

      Calling Functions 

      User-Defined Functions 
9. Advanced Queries

      Copying Input Elements with Modifications 

      Working with Positions and Sequence Numbers 

      Combining Results 

      Using Intermediate XML Documents 
10. Namespaces and XQuery

      XML Namespaces 

      Namespaces and XQuery 

      Namespace Declarations in Queries 

      Controlling Namespace Declarations in Your Results 
11. A Closer Look at Types

      The XQuery Type System 

      The Built-in Types 

      Types, Nodes, and Atomic Values 

      Type Checking in XQuery 

      Automatic Type Conversions 

      Sequence Types 

      Constructors and Casting 
12. Queries, Prologs, and Modules

      Structure of a Query: Prolog and Body 

      Assembling Queries from Multiple Modules 

      Variable Declarations 

      Declaring External Functions 
13. Using Schemas with XQuery

      What Is a Schema? 

      Why Use Schemas with Queries? 

      W3C XML Schema: A Brief Overview 

      In-Scope Schema Definitions 

      Schema Validation and Type Assignment 

      Sequence Types and Schemas 
14. Static Typing

      What Is Static Typing? 

      The Typeswitch Expression 

      The Treat Expression 

      Type Declarations 

      The zero-or-one, one-or-more, and exactly-one Functions 
15. Principles of Query Design

      Query Design Goals 

      Clarity 

      Modularity 

      Robustness 

      Error Handling 

      Performance 
16. Working with Numbers

      The Numeric Types 

      Constructing Numeric Values 

      Comparing Numeric Values 

      Arithmetic Operations 

      Functions on Numbers 
17. Working with Strings

      The xs:string Type 

      Constructing Strings 

      Comparing Strings 

      Substrings 

      Finding the Length of a String 

      Concatenating and Splitting Strings 

      Manipulating Strings 

      Whitespace and Strings 

      Internationalization Considerations 
18. Regular Expressions

      The Structure of a Regular Expression 

      Representing Individual Characters 

      Representing Any Character 

      Representing Groups of Characters 

      Character Class Expressions 

      Reluctant Quantifiers 

      Anchors 

      Back-References 

      Using Flags 

      Using Sub-Expressions with Replacement Variables 
19. Working with Dates, Times, and Durations

      The Date and Time Types 

      The Duration Types 

      Extracting Components of Dates, Times, and Durations 

      Using Arithmetic Operators on Dates, Times, and Durations 

      The Date Component Types 
20. Working with Qualified Names, URIs, and IDs

      Working with Qualified Names 

      Working with URIs 

      Working with IDs 
21. Working with Other XML Components

      XML Comments 

      Processing Instructions 

      Documents 

      Text Nodes 

      XML Entity and Character References 

      CDATA Sections 
22. Additional XQuery-Related Standards

      Serialization 

      XQueryX 

      XQuery Update Facility 

      Full-Text Search 

      XQuery API for Java (XQJ) 
23. Implementation-Specific Features

      Conformance 

      XML Version Support 

      Setting the Query Context 

      Option Declarations and Extension Expressions 

      Specifying Serialization Parameters 
24. XQuery for SQL Users

      Relational Versus XML Data Models 

      Comparing SQL Syntax with XQuery Syntax 

      Combining SQL and XQuery 

      SQL/XML 
25. XQuery for XSLT Users

      XQuery and XPath 

      XQuery Versus XSLT 

      Differences Between XQuery 1.0/XPath 2.0 and XPath 1.0 
A. Built-in Function Reference
B. Built-in Types
C. Error Summary
Index 

Amazon Link: XQuery


Sample Chapter 4: Navigating Input Documents Using Paths (PDF Format)