XQuery

eXtensible Markup Language Query

A functional query language that is designed to query and manipulate XML data. It allows users to extract and manipulate data stored in XML format, much like SQL is used for relational databases. XQuery is built on the XPath expressions and operates by traversing XML documents to locate and retrieve data according to the criteria specified by the query.

XQuery is powerful in its ability to construct XML data, which means you can use it to query XML and transform XML data into other data formats, similar to XSLT. However, XQuery is specifically optimized for complex queries and is generally considered more powerful for querying several XML documents at once and joining data from multiple sources. XQuery is standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It is used in various applications where large amounts of XML data need to be processed, such as in content management systems and data integration applications.

• Abbreviation: XQuery