W3C Revises XPath 2.0, XQuery 1.0, XQueryX 1.0, and Supporting Recomendations

Today the XML Query and XSL Working Groups published three revised Recommendations, XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0 (Second Edition), XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language (Second Edition) and XML Syntax for XQuery 1.0 (XQueryX) (Second Edition). XPath is a language for selecting parts of XML documents; XQuery and XQueryX are query languages for selecting, joining and manipulating XML documents. All three languages operate on any data source that can be represented as instances of the XQuery and XPath abstract Data Model. Also published are second editions of their supporting documents, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model (XDM), Query 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators, XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics, and XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization.

The new editions incorporate errata and make a number of clarifications that resulted from experience of over 50 implementations and widespread use. In addition, a number of issues that arose during testing for the second edition were clarified, a process that took several months. The Working Groups are continuing to process issues that arrived after the end of the review period; any resulting changes will be incorporated either into a third edition or into the 3.0 versions of these documents. Learn more about XML technology.