XQuery FLWOR

XQuery FLWOR

FLWOR is an acronym for "For, Let, Where, Order Through, Return."

• For - Collection of a list of nodes is used.
• Let - Used for binding a sequence to a string.
• Where - For filtering the nodes.
• Order by - Used for grouping the nodes.
• Return - Specifies when to return (gets checked once per each node).

XQuery FLWOR Example

Let's take an XML document that has the details regarding course selection. We are going to use a FLWOR expression to retrieve the titles of those courses which are over 30 fees.

books.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<books>
   
   <book category="JAVA">
      <title lang="en">Learn Java in 24 Hours</title>
      <author>Max</author>
      <year>2018</year>
      <price>30.00</price>
   </book>
   
   <book category="DOTNET">
      <title lang="en">Learn .Net in 24 hours</title>
      <author>sweden</author>
      <year>2019</year>
      <price>70.50</price>
   </book>
   
   <book category="XML">
      <title lang="en">Learn XQuery in 24 hours</title>
      <author>max</author>
      <author>sweden</author> 
      <year>2019</year>
      <price>50.00</price>
   </book>
   
   <book category="XML">
      <title lang="en">Learn XPath in 24 hours</title>
      <author>charlie</author>
      <year>2008</year>
      <price>16.50</price>
   </book>
   
</books>

The accompanying document in Xquery includes the query statement to be performed on the XML document above.

books.xqy

let $books := (doc("books.xml")/books/book)
return <results>
{
   for $x in $books
   where $x/price>30
   order by $x/price
   return $x/title
}

Result

<title lang="en">Learn XQuery in 24 hours</title>

<title lang="en">Learn .Net in 24 hours</title>

To read the courses.xqy, build a Java-based XQuery executor program, transfer it to the XQuery Expression Processor, and execute the term. After that it shows the result.

XQueryTester.java

import java.io.File;  
import java.io.FileInputStream;  
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;  
import java.io.InputStream;  
  
import javax.xml.xquery.XQConnection;  
import javax.xml.xquery.XQDataSource;  
import javax.xml.xquery.XQException;  
import javax.xml.xquery.XQPreparedExpression;  
import javax.xml.xquery.XQResultSequence;  
  
import com.saxonica.xqj.SaxonXQDataSource;  
  
public class XQueryTester {  
   public static void main(String[] args){  
      try {  
         execute();  
      }  
        
      catch (FileNotFoundException e) {  
         e.printStackTrace();  
      }  
        
      catch (XQException e) {  
         e.printStackTrace();  
      }  
   }  
  
   private static void execute() throws FileNotFoundException, XQException{  
      InputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(new File("courses.xqy"));  
      XQDataSource ds = new SaxonXQDataSource();  
      XQConnection conn = ds.getConnection();  
      XQPreparedExpression exp = conn.prepareExpression(inputStream);  
      XQResultSequence result = exp.executeQuery();  
       while (result.next()) {  
         System.out.println(result.getItemAsString(null));  
      }  
   }      
}  

Execute XQuery against XML

Put the three files above to the same location. We placed them in a folder called XQuery3 on your desktop. Use the Console, build XQueryTester.java. You need JDK 1.5 or later built on your computer, and optimized classpaths.

Compile:

javac XQueryTester.java

Execute:

java XQueryTester