“An excellent, early look at the emerging XML Query standard. The chapters on surprises and gotchas alone are worth the price of admission!”

         —Ashok Malhotra, Architect, Microsoft

“XQuery is the most important XML standard to emerge in recent years, and is a language with which anyone using XML on a regular basis should become acquainted. Michael Brundage's accessible introduction to XQuery provides enough information on all aspects of the standard, including its dark corners, to allow any XML developer to jump right in and start coding.”

         —Damien Fisher, Kernel Team Member, Soda Technologies Pty Ltd

“This book does an excellent job of distilling the essentials of XQuery in an understandable, straightforward and easily digestable manner. This book has already become an indispensible part of my library and is a welcome addition to my XML repertoire.”

         —Dare Obasanjo, Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation

“Simply put, the emerging XQuery standard adds enormous value to XML data and this book is your key to unlocking that value. Here in one stop you will find an accessible introduction to XQuery and a complete reference. Practitioners will particularly value the sections on XQuery idioms and surprises where Michael shares his tricks of the trade.”

         —Dave Van Buren, Project Manager, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

“It’s both a stupendous reference on XQuery and a good read. Michael writes with verve, authority, and an eminently readable style. What a rare delight to discover all this, and in a technical book too! When the sequel comes along, sign me up.”

         —Howard Katz, Owner, Fatdog Software Inc., Editor, XQuery from the Experts (Addison-Wesley, 2003)

From corporate IT departments to academic institutions, XML has become the language of choice for storing and transmitting data across diverse application domains. XQuery, an XML Query Language invented by the World Wide Web Consortium, offers a powerful, standardized way to query all of that XML-encapsulated information. With its ability to integrate XML and non-XML data, XQuery seems poised to do for XML what SQL has done for relational data.

Written by the Technical Lead for XML query processing at Microsoft, XQuery: The XML Query Language is an invaluable resource for XQuery novices and experts alike. For those new to XQuery, this example-rich text serves as a tutorial that brings readers quickly up to speed on XQuery's data model, type system, and core language features. More experienced XML and database developers will find an excellent reference on the nuances of various expressions, as well as a guide to using XQuery to accomplish specific tasks.

Drawing on his experiences using XQuery, Michael Brundage offers an objective, inside look at this emerging technology. His unique perspective translates into an accessible and authoritative guide for readers using XML for documents, Web services, or databases.

Key coverage includes:

• Data model and type system

• Path navigation

• Iteration, construction, arithmetic, text processing, type operators and user-defined functions

• Information beyond the standard—such as a look at update languages, performance benchmarks, query optimization, XQuery style, and much, much more

• Hundreds of examples

• The future of XQuery

The appendixes provide in-depth information on XQuery's type system, core expressions, built-in functions, regular expressions, and grammar. Meanwhile, the companion Web site offers downloadable source code for all of the examples in the book, the latest on the XQuery standard, answers to readers' questions, XQuery tips and strategies, and more.

XQuery will show developers, programmers, and database administrators how a single line of this deep and powerful new language can accomplish the equivalent of hundreds of lines written in C, C#, Java, and other general-purpose programming languages.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 6 Ratings

Concepts & Practical Programming - 2004-06-29
Reviewer Rating:
Too many development books are slanted towards either concepts or practical, in-the-trenches development. This book manages to balance both by giving not only the what's and why's, but the how to's, and does so in a readable and highly credible manner.

The discussion about why Xquery instead of Xpath, XSLT or even direct access through another programming language shows both the strengths and some weaknesses of Xquery. This discussion extended into documents, databases, the state of the Xquery specification, and culminated in a essential types, and types you will not need. This is both conceptual and practical.

For the developer who wants to get up-to-speed with (or refine skills in) Xquery, this book goes deep into every facet, using concepts, concrete examples, and code. More importantly, the author's extensive experience is shown in Chapter 11, which covers problem areas and common points of confusion. This short chapter will prove invaluable to new developers. I also liked the chapter on query optimization, and the rich reference material in the appendices, which is almost half of this book.

If you want to learn Xquery, hone existing skills, or step back and see the big picture this book is the best one in my opinion. Expect in-depth technical information, and expect it to be provided by someone who understands developers and provides the code to make it real.

Excellent language introduction and reference - 2004-03-05
Reviewer Rating:
This is a well written introductory and reference work on XQuery. It's primarily an introductory work, the first 260 pages are introduction and the final 240 are a reference that is organized as an appendix.

The writing is solid, and it by no means panders to the reader, so you should be prepared to read over sections multiple times to completely understand the topic. I can't penalize the book for this because the topic is fairly complex.

On the downside there could be more in the way of real world examples in the text as they explain so of the more complex topics. It easier for the reader to retain the information if they knew why they would be using the language feature in the real world. In addition the book needs a section on existing tools and support for XQuery.

Strong chapters are chapters five and six which cut to the heart for the FLWOR expression syntax.

Overall this is a fine introductory work that could use some expansion and some more focused explanations.

Do you want to learn to speak XQuery? - 2004-09-03
Reviewer Rating:
This is simply a great introduction to XQuery. In general this is a book rich on examples. I used this to test every other query, and gain a more thorough understand of the particular topic. The best way to learn a new language is to practice - right ?

Besides the examples bit, I think this is a well written book that explains the more academic content in straight forward manner. About half of the book is references, which has a lot of examples. My personal favorite section is the "Idioms" part of Chapter 10 that gives some clever solutions that I wouldn't have come up with myself.

Good contents, bad binding - 2004-09-01
Reviewer Rating:
This very good book gets only 1 star because of the poor quality of binding. A few months of (admittedly heavy) use is all it took for individual pages and whole sections to start falling out.
Otherwise, I generally agree with the previous review. It's a thorough introduction to the XQuery language with extensive reference and numerous examples. If it wasn't for the horrible production values I'd give it 5 stars.

Good book and a fascinating topic - 2004-02-29
Reviewer Rating:
This is a well written introductory and reference work on XQuery. It's primarily an introductory work, the first 260 pages are introduction and the final 240 are a reference that is organized as an appendix.

The writing is solid, and it by no means panders to the reader, so you should be prepared to read over sections multiple times to completely understand the topic. I can't penalize the book for this because the topic is fairly complex.

On the downside there could be more in the way of real world examples in the text as they explain so of the more complex topics. It easier for the reader to retain the information if they knew why they would be using the language feature in the real world. In addition the book needs a section on existing tools and support for XQuery.

Strong chapters are chapters five and six which cut to the heart for the FLWOR expression syntax.

Overall this is a fine introductory work that could use some expansion and some more focused explanations.

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