The State of Native XML Databases I’ve recently been asked by several people to summarize the state of native XML databases for those interested in exploring this space. IMHO, native XML databases are now roughly where relational databases were circa 1994: solid, proven technology that gets the job done but only if you pay big bucks to do it. However, there’s some promising open source activity on the horizon. To be brief, there are roughly four (maybe five) choices to consider: * Mark Logic * eXist * DB2 9 * Berkeley DB XML
The declarative nature of XQuery is both a benefit and a drawback: While it allow very effective high-level data querying and manipulation, it works against the expectations of many application developers The MXQuery project implements approaches to overcome these issues: XQueryP is implemented to allow easier application development by extending the XQuery Update facility, which is also implemented in MXQuery. The engine uses a very low memory footprint (both in code size and runtime data requirements) to be able to run on low-powered devices. This is achieved by using restricted type support, streaming data processing and a efficient token-based representation of XML. Features * XQuery 1.0 (currently about 95 % of the test suite workig) * XQuery Update facility, uses file system as persistent storage * XQueryP * FORSEQ: Window semantics for XQuery