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Oracle Corp. and IBM on Tuesday announced a new Java Specification Request to define a Java API for invocations of queries written in XQuery, the XML querying language.
XQuery, like the base XML 1.0 standard, is a specification thats still in progress and one that lacks an API for invocation from application environments. In comparison, the long-established SQL query language—which pertains mostly to databases—has JDBC, an API to submit SQL queries and process the results of such queries.
What JDBC is to SQL, the newly proposed XQuery API for Java will be to XQuery, according to Sandeepan Banerjee, director of product management for XML at Oracle, of Redwood Shores, Calif. “XML Query has been getting a lot of traction,” he said. “Enterprises are looking at it in more and more areas. The question is, Is the ecosystem around it built up? Do we have the pieces we need? The ability to merge XML with other standards like SQL is important. Were trying to take XML and harmonize it with the world of Java and the world of SQL.”
The result, said Banerjee, will be a uniform model for content and data management.
XML is expected to become a standard between late fall and winter. The JSR, which is numbered 225, should be available around the same time, Banerjee said.