Informix Software is in the business of supplying relational and object-relational database software. We also have divisions that deliver E-Commerce and Data Warehousing solutions. We have various groups involved in development of products that generate and/or process XML.

XML has been proposed, and is being used, as a data interchange mechanism. This will lead, to people building repositories of XML documents and XML data. Since there are billions of dollars invested in relational technology, it is reasonable to expect that some of these repositories will be built on top of relational databases. In addition there is a need to access existing repositories of data, e.g. relational databases, using the XML Query Language.

We would like to see a query language that not only builds on the good ideas previous successful query languages (e.g. SQL) but also one that is compatible them. As people extend existing repositories with XML data, applications and even queries will have to mix XML-QL with SQL (or OQL). In particular, XML data must be accessible from SQL queries.

Specific features we would like to see addressed include:

• Complex queries - The entire result set must be generated by the Query Langu age so that there is no need for ad hoc post processing by the application. This includes:

• Joins
• Aggregation
• Nested queries
• Ordering

• Parameters - The language should permit queries to have parameters. This is for 2 reasons, first this programming model is well accepted (e.g. ODBC) and second it may permit repeated execution of an optimized query.
• Strong typing - with type extensibility. Strong typing is critical for reliable query results. The ability to define permitted casts (or transforms) permits schema and application designers to combine different data types and still getpredictable results.

We have a group involved in mapping objects from 3GLs and 4GLs to relational and object relational storage. They find XML a very good way to describe these mappings. There is a need to map the object to its data source representation using SQL. In general there will be XML documents containing, possibly parameterized, SQL queries. Informix has an interest in having such an embedding be as standardized as possible