<p><span class=”plain”>Designed to be a language in which queries are concise and easily understood, XQuery is also flexible enough to query a broad spectrum of XML information sources, including both databases and documents. This sample chapter from <i>XQuery: The XML Query Language</i> investigates one of the primary features of XQuery, navigation. Coverage includes:</span></p><ul><li>the syntax and meaning of path expressions, and how the evaluation context affects (and is affected by) their evaluation</li><li>the six required XQuery axes (attribute, child, descendant, descendant-or-self, parent, and self) </li><li>the six optional XQuery axes (ancestor, ancestor-or-self, preceding, preceding-sibling, following, and following-sibling) </li><li>the name tests, node kind tests, and wildcards that can be used with axes to select nodes by name, kind, and type</li><li>how predicates can be used to filter an expression by other criteria, including position</li><li>the doc() function, which loads external XML data</li><li>examples of how to solve a variety of real-world tasks using path navigation.</li></ul><p><span class=”plain”><b>Title:</b> <i> XQuery: The XML Query Language </i><br> <b>ISBN:</b> 0321165810<br> <b>Published:</b> February 2004<br> <b>Author:</b> Michael Brundage <br> <b>Chapter:</b> Chapter 3: Navigation <br> Published by <a href=” http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321165810″ target=”_blank”> Addison Wesley Professional</a></span></p>