XQuery is rapidly becoming seen as an alternative XML processing solution. It has some advantages – you can embed the queries into the XML, and it can be easier to follow than XSLT and some other solutions, to name but a few. So how do you use it to do some real work? Well, as a starting point, try my new article on how to Aggregate RSS and Atom information using XQuery. Using the familiar territory of RSS and Atom feeds, which at their core have a fairly simple structure and are therefore easy to follow what is being done. With that in mind, here’s what I do in the article:
XQuery makes it much easier to merge and filter information from XML documents when you embed the filtering instructions right into the document that you use to generate the output format. You can use that functionality to aggregate information from RSS and Atom feeds into the format you need. In this article, look at the structure of the RSS and Atom formats and how XQuery can simplify the display of that information.