The World Wide Web Consortium released eight new standards for its XML line on Jan. 23.
The new Web standards are designed to help businesses request information from a database, transform and access XML data and do bond databases with the Web
W3C's new Web standards were developed by the XSL Working Group and XML Query Working Group. The new Web standards are:
XML path language
XSL Transformations
XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language
XML Syntax for XQuery 1.0
XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model
XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators
XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics
XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization.
The main specifications, initially released in August 2006, for these eight new Web standards, XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language, XSL Transformations 2.0 and XML Path Language 2.0, were designed to allow business users to request information from databases as well as transform and access XML data and documents.
W3C's XQuery 1.0 allows users to search for hidden patterns in a set of data from memos and Web service messages to multi-terabyte relational databases. The patterns found could help the company predict the future behavior of that data.
"XQuery makes it easier to design and build Web applications, as well as to search through and analyze complex data from multiple sources, Liam Quin, W3C XML Activity Lead, told eWEEK.
Quin further explained that "XQuery can bring the relational database functions and features to the volumes of XML data now present in enterprises."
XSLT 2.0 features improved detection of errors while also providing users with a language that can be used to transform XML documents into other XML documents and can also be used with XML Path Language 2.0, which features a tree representation of XML documents as well as atomic values and sequences.
"This brings an enhanced data model with a type system based on sequences of nodes or atomic values, support for all the built-in types defined in XML Schema, and a wide range of new functions and operators," Quin said.
XSLT2.0 can also use XML Schema, which is heavily used in SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)-based Web services.
"For XPath 2.0 and XSLT 2.0, the Working Groups have provided the developer community and software manufacturers with a foundation and an even more versatile XML manipulation tool," Quin said.
"The new Web standards provide a standard way to search XML documents, databases, relational databases and other sources while also seeing a reduction in training and maintenance costs and the greater leveraging of corporate information assets," Quin said.
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