- From: Janet Daly <janet@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 06:52:18 -0800
- To: w3c-news@w3.org
Today, W3C announces the approval of standards that bring the best of
Database technologies and XML together, as well as tools that will
expand the power of developers creating enterprise-grade XML
applications. XQuery, XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 already enjoy broad
implementation in industry products from Data Direct, IBM, Innovomax,
Mark Logic, Microsoft and Oracle; as well as Open Source software.
For more information, please contact Janet Daly, W3C Global
Communications Officer at +1 617 253 5884 <janet@w3.org> or the W3C
Communications Team representative in your region.
W3C XQuery 1.0 and XSLT 2.0 Become Standards: Tools to Query,
Transform, and Access XML and Relational Data
Newest Open Web Standards Already Widely Supported in Industry
Contact Americas, Australia --
Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884 or +1.617.253.2613
Contact Europe, Africa and the Middle East --
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94
Contact Asia --
Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170
Web Resources:
This Press release
In English: http://www.w3.org/2007/01/qt-pressrelease.html.en
In French: http://www.w3.org/2007/01/qt-pressrelease.html.fr
In Japanese: http://www.w3.org/2007/01/qt-pressrelease.html.ja
Testimonials from DataDirect, IBM, Innovimax, Mark Logic
Corporation, Michael Kay,
and Microsoft:
http://www.w3.org/2007/01/qt-testimonial
The full list of new Web Standards
1. XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xpath20-20070123/
2. XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xslt20-20070123/
3. XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xquery-20070123/
4. XML Syntax for XQuery 1.0 (XQueryX)
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xqueryx-20070123/
5. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM)
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xpath-datamodel-20070123/
6. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xpath-functions-20070123/
7. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xquery-semantics-20070123/
8. XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-xslt-xquery-serialization-20070123/
http://www.w3.org/ -- 23 January 2007 -- Based on widespread
implementation experience and extensive feedback from users and
vendors, W3C has published eight new standards in the XML Family to
support the ability to query, transform, and access XML data and
documents. The primary specifications are XQuery 1.0: An XML Query
Language, XSL Transformations (XSLT) 2.0, and XML Path Language
(XPath) 2.0; see the full list below.
These new Web Standards will play a significant role in enterprise
computing by connecting databases with the Web. XQuery allows data
mining of everything from memos and Web service messages to multi-
terabyte relational databases. XSLT 2.0 adds significant new
functionality to the already widely deployed XSLT 1.0, which enables
the transformation and styled presentation of XML documents. Both
specifications rely on XPath 2.0, also significantly enriched from
its previous version.
W3C's XSL Working Group and XML Query Working Group, who created
these specifications, have addressed thousands of comments from
implementers and the interested public to ensure that the
specifications meet the needs of diverse communities.
XML Query 1.0 Joins Database and Document Worlds
XML Query (XQuery) describes a database query language for XML data.
"XQuery will serve as a unifying interface for access to XML data,
much as SQL has done for relational data," said Don Chamberlin of IBM
Almaden Research Center, co-inventor of the original SQL Query
language and one of the co-editors of XQuery 1.0. "Since virtually
any kind of information can be represented using XML, I expect XQuery
to play a central role in unifying information from many different
sources. Companies across a wide range of industries can use XQuery
to pull together structured and semi-structured information for
processing in a unified way."
The XML Query Working Group catalogued over forty implementations of
XQuery and reported on how fourteen of them satisfy a test suite
consisting of more than 14,000 test cases, demonstrating
unprecedented levels of interoperability. XML Query is already
available in products from all of the major relational database
vendors as well as in XML-native database systems, middleware, XML
editing systems and numerous open source products. W3C Member
organizations have also announced implementations of XQuery or plans
for implementations.
"The XQuery Working Group engaged in exhaustive review and
collaborative work, both with other W3C Working Groups and with the
developer community," explained Jim Melton of Oracle, XML Query
Working Group co-chair and co-editor of two of the standards
published today. "Over 1,000 comments from developers helped ensure a
resilient and implementable set of database technologies."
"These specifications provide a much needed bridge between two
worlds: documents with complex but irregular internal structure on
the one hand and databases and simple data with atomic values on the
other," said W3C's Michael Sperberg-McQueen, one of the editors of
the original XML 1.0 specification.
Rich XSLT, XPath 2.0 Feature Set Based on Seven Years of Experience
XSLT 1.0, published in 1999, is widely deployed on Web servers and in
browsers and is an important part of today's business and engineering
infrastructure. Years of experience with the language have culminated
in an impressive list of new features in XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0,
including a greatly enlarged library of functions, new facilities for
grouping and aggregation, and more powerful text processing using
regular expressions.
"This is a red-letter day for XSLT users," said Michael Kay, editor
of the XSLT 2.0 specification, "both for those who have been waiting
patiently for this Recommendation to appear before they could use the
new features, and for those who have taken a gamble by deploying the
new technology before its final stamp of approval. Our biggest
achievement, in my view, has been to deliver a huge step forward in
functionality and developer productivity, while also retaining a very
high level of backwards compatibility, thereby keeping transition
costs to the minimum."
XSLT 2.0 can optionally use XML Schema, enabling improved detection
of errors both at compile time and at run-time, and thus provides the
robustness needed in enterprise applications. Implementations of the
new specification have been available since 2002, maturing in
parallel with the specification. With over 150,000 downloads of
various implementations, there is a wealth of experience
demonstrating the benefits of the new features. Indeed, many
organizations, from publishing houses to investment banks, are
already using XSLT 2.0 in their operational systems.
The eight Recommendations published today that together increase the
power of the XML family are:
1. XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0
2. XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0
3. XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language
4. XML Syntax for XQuery 1.0 (XQueryX)
5. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM)
6. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators
7. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics
8. XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization
Testimonials from DataDirect, IBM, Innovimax, Mark Logic Corporation,
Microsoft Corporation and Oracle
In English
DataDirect Technologies is very pleased that XQuery 1.0 is now a
W3C Recommendation. We believe that XQuery is a key technology for
XML processing and for data integration. We have actively
participated in the XML Query Working Group, and are dedicated to
supporting XQuery in our XML products, including DataDirect XQuery,
which provides fast,reliable and scalable XQuery for XML, relational
data, SOAP messages,EDI, or a combination of data sources. XQuery is
also supported inStylus Studio, our XML IDE, which fully supports
XQuery with an XQueryeditor, debugging, mapping and visualization tools.
-- Robert Evelyn, VP Strategy and General Manager XML
ProductsGroup, DataDirect
IBM is pleased to see XQuery 1.0, XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 advance
to Recommendation status. We have supported the W3C in this effort by
providing the XSL Working Group chair, an XQuery Working Group co-
chair, as well as XQuery, XSLT and XPath specification editors. As
key additions in the XML family, these standards allow businesses to
flexibly access, query, manipulate and present their data for
heterogeneous customers and partners. IBM has several market leading
products that offer support for these important standards, in
particular IBM DB2 Version 9.1 with support for XQuery, and we
anticipate real benefits to our customers.
-- Karla Norsworthy, VP Software Standards, IBM
Innovimax is very pleased to have participated in the effective
collaborative effort that permits XSLT 2.0, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0
to become Recommendations of the W3C. It is a great step forward in
making XML transformations more and more a core component of XML
ecosystem. Great challenges would become more accessible as the
market will use those specifications and Innovimax will help media
companies to improve.
-- Mohamed Zergaoui, President and Chief Technology Officer,
Innovimax
As the provider of the industry's leading XML content server,
and a long-standing member of the XQuery Working Group, Mark Logic is
very pleased that the W3C has released the new standards in the XML
Family. We designed MarkLogic Server, based on the W3C-standard
XQuery language, to query, manipulate, and render XML content, which
enables our customers to unlock the value of their information. The
addition of the W3C's new XML standards signifies an important step
towards creating even more opportunities for improving the way our
customers find and utilize content.
-- Dave Kellogg, CEO, Mark Logic Corporation
Microsoft is proud to have participated in the development of
XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 at the W3C and is pleased to see it
successfully release as a final recommendation. We feel XQuery adds
important functionality to the XML processing stack and we already
deploy SQL Server 2005 with integrated XQuery support on the XML data
type. We believe that the advance of XQuery to a W3C Recommendation
provides a solid foundation for future advances in our XML support
inside the database to address our customers’ need in XML data
processing.
-- Michael Rys, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft
Oracle is delighted with the progression of XQuery to
Recommendation status and celebrates along with the XML community the
completion of this important language. Oracle's commitment to W3C and
XQuery is reflected in Jim Melton's serving as co-chair of the the
XML Query Working Group and in the contribution of our technical
representative to that effort Dana Florescu -- co-inventor of Quilt,
the language that served as the starting point for XQuery. Our
participation in XQuery's development reflects our corporate
philosophy to support open standards forums, such as the W3C.
Oracle's database products, XML DB and Berkeley DB, were the first to
deliver an embedded XQuery implementation, and progression of XQuery
to Recommendation status gives our customers further confidence in
using that important new capability.
-- Donald Deutsch, Ph.D, Vice President of Standards Strategy
and Architecture, Oracle Corporation
En Français
Innovimax est particulièrement heureux d'avoir participé à la
contribution internationale ayant mené à l'adoption par le W3C des
recommandations XSLT 2.0, XQuery 1.0 et XPath 2.0. Cette évolution
majeure permettra de remettre au cur de l'écosystème XML les
transformations de données XML. Les challenges dans ces domaines
trouveront dans l'implémentation de ces spécifications de nouvelles
solutions et Innovimax fournira l'expertise nécessaire aux
fournisseurs de contenus multimédia.
-- Mohamed ZERGAOUI, Gérant et Directeur de l'innovation, Innovimax
About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium
where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work
together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission
through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to
ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 400 organizations are
Members of the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer
Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the
USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics
(ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan, and has
additional Offices worldwide. For more information see http://
www.w3.org/
Received on Tuesday, 23 January 2007 14:52:39 UTC