Virtual eXist-db
Curtis Dyreson, Sourav Saha Bhowmick, Ryan Grapp · Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment · 2015
XQuery programs can be hard to write and port to new data collections because the path expressions in a query aredependenton the hierarchy of the data. We propose to demonstrate a system to liberate query writers from this dependence. Aplug-and-play querycontains a specification of what data the query needs in order to evaluate. We implementedvirtual eXist-dbto support plug-and-play XQuery queries. Our system adds avirtualDocfunction that lets a programmer sketch the hierarchy needed by the query, which may well be different than what the data has, and logically (not physically) transforms the data (with information loss guarantees) to the hierarchy specified by thevirtualDoc.The demonstration will consist of a sequence of XQuery queries using a virtual hierarchy, including queries suggested by the audience. We will also demonstrate a GUI tool to construct a virtual hierarchy.