Re: XQuery and Updates

At 08:28 PM 2/25/2001 +0100, Andreas Wolber wrote:
>I've read the XQuery Draft and missed very much the Update Topic.
>There are statements in the draft, that this is a working topic and might
>result in a non-normative appendix to the draft.
>I consider the possibility for updates one of the biggest topics for a broad
>success of XQuery, as this feature would add a real value to the
>possibilities already offered by XSLT-like processors.

I agree with you.

>In fact, this is something hardly any XML repository does provide today, and
>those who do, like Excelon, have quite proprietary solutions.
>In my opinion, XML database only make real sense when providing a powerfull
>update language, so that users do no longer need to retrieve the whole
>document form the DB, but can send a powerfull update statement to the
>database, as in SQL. Retrieving the whole document or using a persistent-DOM
>interfiace is especially no solutions when client-server architectures with
>several distributed application server is involved, as in most Java/J2EE
>scenarios.

Well stated, and I definitely agree.

>So my questions is, whether there any first concepts for an update language.
>How realistic is the hope, that XML Updates will actually be part of the
>final XQuery specification?

I think the most that can be publicly stated right now is what you see: 
updates are not part of our requirements, as our Requirements document 
makes clear, but there is definite interest in updates, as you can see by 
the issue in the XQuery document. The wording of the issue was carefully 
chosen - the XQuery Editors believe that a syntax for update would be 
extremely useful, it is very unlikely that this would be supported by our 
algebra in Level 1, and one possibility is that this would appear as a 
non-normative appendix in XQuery.

This is something I personally will be pushing for, and I'm not alone. I 
don't want to speak for anybody else here, though, so I won't mention any 
names.

Jonathan


These are my opinions right now. They may be quite different from the 
opinions of Software AG, the W3C XML Query Working Group, or the opinions 
that I will have after reading and considering your response.

Received on Sunday, 25 February 2001 16:22:00 UTC