XQuery Support

In the previous section you saw how XQuery is used in the new XML data type’s methods. XQuery is based on the XPath language created by the W3C (www.w3c.org) for querying XML data. XQuery extends the XPath language by adding the ability to update data as well as support for better iteration and sorting of results. At the time of this writing, the XQuery language used by SQL Server 2005 is an early implementation based on a working draft of the XQuery standard submitted to the W3C, so it’s possible that some implementation details could change before SQL Server 2005 is officially released. A description of the XQuery language is beyond the scope of this book, but for more details about the W3C XQuery standard you can refer to http://www.w3.org/XML/Query. The SQL Server 2005 Books Online also has an introduction to the XQuery language.