XQuery Full-Text extensions explained

There has been recent interest in developing XML query languages, such as XPath and XQuery, to tap the vast amount of information represented and stored in Extensible Markup Language (XML). These query languages, however, have focused mainly on querying the structure of XML documents and provide only rudimentary support for querying text content. To fill this void, XQuery Full-Text has been developed as a full-text extension to XQuery (and also XPath, which is a subset of XQuery). Consequently, XQuery Full-Text can be used to seamlessly query over both the structure and the text content of XML documents. This paper explains the design principles behind XQuery Full-Text, describes its evolution, and illustrates its core features with examples. It is intended as a reference that is shorter and more accessible than the current World Wide Web Consortium working draft.