About XQSharp

XQSharp is a standards compliant implementation of XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 for the Microsoft .NET Framework.

XQuery is a new language developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for querying XML.

The XQSharp API builds upon the classes in the System.Xml namespace. It is written in 100% managed code for Microsoft .NET Framework version 2.0 or later. It is provided as a single strong-named assembly which is suitable for use in Low and Medium Trust environments.

Features

Standards compliance

Developed to adhere to the W3C specifications, XQSharp is regularly tested against the W3C XQuery test suite to ensure complete compliance.

Comprehensive API

The flexible XQSharp API has been designed to match Microsoft's style guidelines, and allows querying of objects which implement the IXPathNavigable interface. XQSharp includes an MSDN-style class reference and Visual Studio IntelliSense for help within your project.

High performance

Throughout development every effort has been made to ensure that XQSharp runs efficiently. XQSharp includes a sophisticated query optimizer, which ensures that even complex queries run at lightning speed. The optimizer also supports join optimizations which allows database-style operations to be performed as quickly as possible.

Extensible

From version 1.4, XQSharp allows XQuery modules to be written as .NET classes and called from an XQuery program or XPath expression.

Static type checking

When enabled, the static type checking feature allows you to ensure that a query will never fail at run time with a type checking error. XQSharp employs advanced type checking rules to ensure that any potential run time type check errors are discovered before the query is run. When disabled, the type checking rules ensure that only the necessary run time checks are introduced.

Schema-Awareness

XQSharp supports the "schema import" and "schema validation" features. This allows an XML Schema to be imported into a query. The types declared in the schema are then made available within the XQuery language. The "schema validation" feature allows data created or used by a query to be validated by an XML Schema. This associates schema type information with the data, and ensures that the query produces the output that you are expecting! Information from imported schemas is also used to aid type checking and optimization, which can boost performance even further.

Advanced XQuery Features

XQSharp supports the complete range of optional features put forward by the XQuery specification. The module feature allows queries to be spread over multiple files, and allows library functions to be shared between multiple queries. The full axis feature allows a broader range of XPath selections to be performed on a document. XQSharp includes an XML serializer which allows the output of the query in several formats — XML, XHTML, HTML or text.

Prices and licensing

XQSharp is free for non-commercial use. Commercial licences start at only £200.

Try it

Download the fully-functional XQSharp trial, read the samples and browse the API documentation.

Got a question?

If you haven't found an answer to your question, contact us and we will be happy to help.