This download is a prototype implementation of the evolving XQuery language, with Oracle extensions. The release version is RELEASE_0.2_030217. This is a technical preview release.

XQuery 1.0 is not scoped to have any update functionality. I've seen proposals for what might go in after 1.0 and they look reasonable and elegant. In the meanwhile what you'll see is custom vendor functions to handle the job. Cerisent for example has functions for inserting and deleting nodes and documents, and these functions work against path expressions nicely. It's really amazing what you can do when you can generate XML that you feed back into the database as input for later queries.

The following statements are the patent disclosures and license commitments associated with the XML-Query family of specifications and provided by members of the XML-Query Working Group as well as other W3C members.

There is a tremendous amount of overlap in the functionality provided by XQuery, the newly drafted XML query language published by the W3C, and that provided by XSLT. The recommendation of two separate languages, one for XML query and one for XML transformations, if they don't have some sort of common base, may cause confusion as to which language should be used for various applications. Despite certain limitations, XSLT as it currently stands may function well as an XML query language. In any case, the development of an XML query language should be informed by XSLT.

A query language for XML based on Xquery 1.0

XQuery is a highly malleable amalgam of an SQL-like syntax grafted on to XPath. At its simplest, an XQuery expression that will likely look familiar is this:

This document is intended to provide an easily readable description of the XQuery XML Query language, and is oriented towards quickly understanding how to create queries. The normative description is mostly provided in the following W3C Working Drafts [*MOS]:

XQuery has some new possibilities, from atomization to trace to file structures.

Qexo is a partial implementation of the XML Query language. It achieves high performance because a query is compiled down to Java bytecodes using the Kawa framework. Kawa also includes a proof-of-concept implementation of XSLT.

XQuery is a technology under development by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that's designed to query collections of XML data -- not just XML files, but anything that can appear as XML, including relational databases. XQuery has broad support from IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle as well as application server vendors such as BEA and Software AG.

What is XQuery? Per Bothner. The World Wide Web Consortium is working on finalizing
the specification for XQuery, aiming for a final release late 2002. ...

XQuery Questioned

XML developers contend that the overlap between XML Query and XSLT is so great that they aren't separate languages at all."

The XML-Deviant asks whether the XQuery specification should be refactored, and whether it should be released without specifying significant parts of the expected feature set? "

XML Query (XQuery) is designed to be a language in which queries are concise and easily understood. It is also flexible enough to query a broad spectrum of XML information sources, including both databases and documents.

Learn to use XQuery conditional and quantified expressions to filter and select data, and to modify query results by including custom functions.

Learn how to use XQuery's FLWR (for, let where, and return) expressions to process and restructure data from one or more documents

The XQuery data model recognizes seven types of nodes. Learn how to take advantage of the data model in XQuery expressions

XML blurs the distinctions between databases, documents, and messages, but it needs a powerful and elegant query language to reach its full potential.  XQuery intends to be that language.