DataDirect has released XQuery 2.0, a Java implementation of the XML query and transformation language (XQuery) API for Java (XQJ). XQuery 2.0 is like the JDBC for XQuery, it simplifies complex data access and integration scenarios by enabling the querying of relational databases, XML/web services, and legacy data (EDI, CSV, etc), or any combination of these using XQuery, with the merged result sets coming back automatically as XML, hiding all of the integration details of that data transformation. DataDirects XQuery also allows updating relational sources using XML as input.
The W3C XQuery specification and 8 related specifications (including XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0) were submitted to the W3C on June 8th. All are currently in Candidate Recommendation stage, and it is expected that they will become W3C Proposed Recommendations since the industry has already begun embracing XQuery in their products, even JSR 170/Java Content Repositories use it as their standard query mechanism.
New features in Data Direct's XQuery 2.0 include:
The W3C XQuery specification and 8 related specifications (including XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0) were submitted to the W3C on June 8th. All are currently in Candidate Recommendation stage, and it is expected that they will become W3C Proposed Recommendations since the industry has already begun embracing XQuery in their products, even JSR 170/Java Content Repositories use it as their standard query mechanism.
New features in Data Direct's XQuery 2.0 include:
- A streaming XML adapter to drastically reduce the amount of memory needed when processing large (gigabyte) XML documents. In addition, performance optimizations can be user configured for specific environments.
- Integration with DataDirect's Stylus Studio XML Deployment Components, allowing integration of EDI, CSV, dBase, binary, and other flat file formats.
- Support for all leading databases.
- Support for the XQuery November 2005 Candidate Recommendation spec including XQuery modules, tested against industry-standard W3C XQuery Test Suite.
XQuery program can join or aggregate data from diverse data sources, and produce XML as output. That XQuery program can then be deployed as a Web service that can be imported into another XQuery program, one that creates a composite view by combining this data source with other data sources in its integration scheme. This is just one example of the value of reusable, standards-based XQuery code.
