Querying XML, : XQuery, XPath, and SQL/XML in context (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) [Paperback]

Jim Melton (Author), Stephen Buxton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1558607110 | ISBN-13: 978-1558607118 | Publication Date: March 20, 2006 | Edition: 1

XML has become the lingua franca for representing business data, for exchanging information between business partners and applications, and for adding structure-
and sometimes meaning-to text-based documents. XML offers some special challenges and opportunities in the area of search: querying XML can produce very precise, fine-grained results, if you know how to express and execute those queries.

For software developers and systems architects: this book teaches the most useful approaches to querying XML documents and repositories. This book will also help managers and project leaders grasp how "querying XML" fits into the larger context of querying and XML. Querying XML provides a comprehensive background from fundamental concepts (What is XML?) to data models (the Infoset, PSVI, XQuery Data Model), to APIs (querying XML from SQL or Java) and more.

* Presents the concepts clearly, and demonstrates them with illustrations and examples; offers a thorough mastery of the subject area in a single book.
* Provides comprehensive coverage of XML query languages, and the concepts needed to understand them completely (such as the XQuery Data Model).
* Shows how to query XML documents and data using: XPath (the XML Path Language); XQuery, soon to be the new W3C Recommendation for querying XML; XQuery's companion XQueryX; and SQL, featuring the SQL/XML
* Includes an extensive set of XQuery, XPath, SQL, Java, and other examples, with links to downloadable code and data samples.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

One-stop shopping: what software developers and architects need to know to master XML querying and retrieval.

From the Back Cover

There is no more authoritative pair of authors on Querying XML than Jim Melton and Stephen Buxton. Best of all, as readers of Jim's other books know, his informal writing style will teach you what you need to know about this complex subject without giving you a headache. If you need a comprehensive and accessible overview of Querying XML, this is the book you have been waiting for.--from the foreword by Don Chamberlin, IBM Fellow, Almaden Research Center

XML has become the lingua franca for representing business data, for exchanging information between business partners and applications, and for adding structure- and sometimes meaning-to text-based documents. XML offers some special challenges and opportunities in the area of search: querying XML can produce very precise, fine-grained results, if you know how to express and execute those queries.

For software developers and systems architects: this book teaches the most useful approaches to querying XML documents and repositories. This book will also help managers and project leaders grasp how "querying XML" fits into the larger context of querying and XML. Querying XML provides a comprehensive background from fundamental concepts (What is XML?) to data models (the Infoset, PSVI, XQuery Data Model), to APIs (querying XML from SQL or Java) and more.

* Presents the concepts clearly, and demonstrates them with illustrations and examples; offers a thorough mastery of the subject area in a single book.
* Provides comprehensive coverage of XML query languages, and the concepts needed to understand them completely (such as the XQuery Data Model).
* Shows how to query XML documents and data using: XPath (the XML Path Language); XQuery, soon to be the new W3C Recommendation for querying XML; XQuery's companion XQueryX; and SQL, featuring the SQL/XML extensions.
* Includes an extensive set of XQuery, XPath, SQL, Java, and other examples, with links to downloadable code and data samples.


Jim Melton of Oracle Corporation is editor of all parts of ISO/IEC 9075 (SQL) and has been active in SQL standardization for two decades. More recently, he has been active in the W3C's XML Query Working Group that defined XQuery, is co-Chair of that WG, and co-edited two of the XQuery specifications. Stephen Buxton is Director of Product Management at Mark Logic Corporation, and a member of the W3C XQuery Working Group and Full-Text Task Force. Until recently, Stephen was Director of Product Management for Text and XML at Oracle Corporation.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (March 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558607110
• ISBN-13: 978-1558607118
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #614,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #84 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Languages & Tools > XML

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Like season 6 of 24, this is disappointing., May 22, 2007

By 

Marshal Dillon (New Hampshire) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Querying XML, : XQuery, XPath, and SQL/XML in context (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) (Paperback)

I have had this book for almost a month now. This book is painful to get through. I can usually get through a technical book within a week and try some examples. I started reading this book front to back and did not skip any sections.

I am not a NOOB when it comes to XML so I found this surprising. I am a certified XML developer (from before XQuery), an experienced programming engineer of 8 years, an MCAD.Net, and I have even written a paper on XQuery for a Master's Program and I simply have become unmotivated and am struggling to get through this book. As others have stated in reviews, this book takes a long time to get to the point. I like to get my money's worth when I buy a book though.

I kept asking myself chapter after chapter "when do we start programming some examples?" The first 10 chapters are filled with everything but XQuery. The author covers the background of XML and why we would use XQuery in detail. I see the argument for why this book may be beneficial to some but if you wish to get up and running on XQuery this is not the book for you.

I may update this as I finish off the book. I am getting more into actual XQuery syntax and grammar as of chapter 11. A flip through the TOC shows that the author covers some implementation info. My goal was to have a better understanding of how to actually implement XQuery and learn some of the more detailed points of it versus just FLWOR that the numerous online tutorials offer. I have purchased another book by O'Reilly instead.

Update: I received the O'Reilly book right after writing this review. I flipped through the TOC and first few pages of XQuery by O'Reilly for a comparison. Wow! These two books could not be any different. I am on chapter 5 of the O'Reilly XQuery book just in a few hours of off and on reading at work. It appears thus far to be the better choice. Luckily, work is paying for these books so I was only cheated out of time buying "Querying XML".

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars DTD, but little Schema, September 5, 2006

By 

John M (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Querying XML, : XQuery, XPath, and SQL/XML in context (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) (Paperback)

My only complaint with this book is that it emphasizes DTD over Schema a bit too much. For this and other reasons, I felt the treatment of XML seemed a little dated, and also a bit shallow.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A balanced view of XQuery with several excellent use-cases, September 6, 2006

By 

Grandpoohbah "Grandpoohbah" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Querying XML, : XQuery, XPath, and SQL/XML in context (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) (Paperback)

The authors are XQuery standardization committee members with long tenures at Oracle, thus possessing an unique grounding in that 'other' query language, SQL. As a result, the book is balanced with respect to what SQL/XML and XQuery can respectively do. A number of examples are provided, to illustrate where XQuery is useful and where other query mechanisms might work.