Editorial Review:

Book Description:
Working it's way towards W3C Recommendation status sometime in 2002, the XQuery language and associated specifications are the biggest project to date from the World Wide Web Consortium since it ratified XML in 1998. XQuery is to XML data as SQL is to data in relational databases and more - a single syntax that allows us to specify queries on structured XML data, independent of how and on what platform it is stored, and return the results as XML in a structure of your choosing. It is also one of the first large scale attempts to get the various W3C specifications in line with each other, uniting the XSL, XQuery, and XML Schema working groups in its creation.

Early Adopter XQuery presents the facts about this ambitious new technology, covering its history and development to date, and what changes might occur in the future before it is ratified. We present easy-to-follow introductions to the XQuery language for those already familiar with SQL and XSLT that others can follow too and a look at the early implementations of XQuery that exist around the internet. In particular, we look at .NET and Java classes which you can use to incorporate XQuery into your own work and a basic case study demonstrating how to build your own XQuery engine.

What does this book cover?

The History of XQuery, its predecessors and how to work with the current set of XQuery documents
The XQuery Data Model, Formal Semantics and Use Cases
XQuery from a SQL perspective
XQuery from an XSLT/XML perspective
The current set of XQuery implementations available today, in particular Microsoft's .NET classes for XQuery and FatDog's Java implementation
How to set about building your own XQuery engine

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Rating: - Not much useful
Not much info you can get from this book. Maybe it was published too early?

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Rating: - Ironic Authority
When i read the author listing and their occupations, after i had purchased this book ... i was a bit furious at myself, as if i had wasted money in quenching my thirst for this new language based on XML. Unlikely, the book is very well authored and gives references to vendors and tools that provide hands on experience of this new language and makes it rather less formidable for a person trying to grasp the specs (which are already numerous enough to confuse you when you look into XML technology). In short, provides considerable in depth to serve the purpose of deciding to go this way or not ... at the same time it demonstrates and teaches the language (as minimum and limited as it is currently) in a exemplary way, so in my opinion it strikes a good balance between the theory and examples it provides. Infact focuses more on examples and practicality, if you are really interetsed in using this language somewhere down the road i would advise to get this book than rather scratch your head over its specs a W3C for long periods of time.