XQuery terminology

The best way to explain XQuery is this: XQuery is to XML what SQL is to database tables.

XQuery is designed to query XML data - not just XML files, but any data that can be represented in XML form, including databases.

XQuery terminology syntax

In XQuery, there are seven types of nodes: elements, attributes, text, namespaces, processing instructions, comments, and document nodes (or root nodes).

XQuery terminology example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<bookstore>
<book>
<title>Harry Potter</title>
<author>J K. Rowling</author>
<year>2005</year>
<price>29.99</price>
</book>
</bookstore>

Example of nodes in the above XML document:

<bookstore> (document node)
<author>J K. Rowling</author> (element node)
lang="en" (attribute node)