xquery-tool: A simple GNU/Emacs interface to Saxonb’s XQuery processor

Quick start

After installing, open a buffer containing an XML document, and call: M-x xquery-tool-query RET. Then enter an XPath that works for your document.

For simple cases, an XQuery preamble including namespaces will be set automatically.

Calling M-x xquery-tool-query RET //title RET RET with this document (see http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/xpath_syntax.asp) open:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<bookstore>
<book>
  <title lang="en">The Colour of Magic</title>
  <price unit="euro">29.99</price>
</book>
<book>
  <title lang="en">Learning XML</title>
  <price unit="euro">39.95</price>
</book>
</bookstore>

Will give you a buffer with these results:

<title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
<title lang="en">Learning XML</title>

The results are linked back to the original buffer when possible.

Dependencies (apart from Emacs):

• saxon basic (http://saxon.sourceforge.net/; on Debian, aptitude install libsaxonb-java)

Typical workflows

Simple XPath

1. Open an XML document, like the one in Simple XML Doc
2. Run an xquery on the buffer
3. Watch out for links back to the main document
   • NOTE: Links are to locations in the buffer, not to the elements as such. That’s why editing around point A might move the text that follows, making the links invalid.
   • Solution: either reverse() your xquery (later occurrences will be at the top), or go through the list of results backwards.
4. You can now work on the results, for example:
   • Keyboard macros (try F3 and F4)

Installation

In GNU/Emacs (with melpa packaging set up):

M-x package-install RET xquery-tool

This will install the Melpa package: https://melpa.org/#/xquery-tool

To install from git, clone this repository and make sure to load file:xquery-tool.el (see Testing below for an example).

Testing

emacs --no-init-file --no-site-file -batch \
      -l xquery-tool.el \
      -l tests/xquery-tool-tests.el \
      -f ert-run-tests-batch-and-exit