• XQuery is the language for querying XML data only
• XQuery for XML is like SQL for database
• XQuery is built on with the use of XPath expressions
• XQuery is defined by the W3C standard
• XQuery is supported by all the major database engines ( Oracle,IBM, Microsoft, etc.)
• XQuery will become W3C standard - and developers can be sure that the code will work among different products

XQuery is a language for finding and extracting the elements and attributes from XML documents.

Here is an example of a question that XQuery could solve only:

"Select all CD records with a price less than $10 from the CD collection stored in the XML documents called cd_catalog.xml"

XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 share the same data model and supports the same functions and operators. If you have already studied XPath you will have no problem with understanding XQuery.

You can read more about XPath in our XPath Tutorial.

XQuery can be used to:

• Generate summary reports
• Extract information to use in a Web Service
• Transform XML data to XHTML
• Search Web documents for relevant information

XQuery is compatible with the several W3C standards, such as XML, Namespaces, XSLT, XPath, and XML Schema.

However, XQuery 1.0 is not yet W3C Recommendation (XQuery is a Working Draft). Hopefully it will be a recommendation in the near future.

To read more about the XQuery activity at W3C Tutorial, please read our W3C Tutorial

Before you goes to this tutorial you should have a basic understanding of the following:

• HTML / XHTML
• XPath
• XML / XML Namespaces

If you are going to study these subjects first, find the tutorial on our Home page