XQuery for Humanists (Coding for Humanists)

✍ Scribed by Clifford B. Anderson, Joseph C. Wicentowski

• Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
• Year: 2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 351
• Edition: Illustrated
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

XQuery is the best language for querying, manipulating, and transforming XML and JSON documents. Because XML is in many ways the lingua franca of the digital humanities, learning XQuery empowers humanists to discover and analyze their data in new ways.

Until now, though, XQuery has been difficult to learn because there was no textbook designed for non- or beginner programmers. XQuery for Humanists fills this void with an approachable guidebook aimed directly at digital humanists.

Clifford B. Anderson and Joseph C. Wicentowski introduce XQuery in terms accessible to humanities scholars and do not presuppose any prior background in programming. It provides an informed, opinionated overview and recommends the best implementations, libraries, and paradigms to empower those who need it most. Emphasizing practical applicability, the authors go beyond the XQuery language to include the basics of underlying standards like XPath, related standards like XQuery Full Text and XQuery Update, and explain the difference between XQuery and languages like Python and R. This book will afford readers the skills they need to build and analyze large-scale documentary corpora in XML. 

XQuery for Humanists is immeasurably valuable to instructors of digital humanities and library science courses alike and likewise is a ready reference for faculty, graduate students, and librarians who seek to master XQuery for their projects.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Why XQuery for Humanists?
1.1 Built for the Kind of Data Most Digital Humanists Use
1.2 Easy for Beginning Programmers to Learn
1.3 XML and Digital Humanities Data
1.3.1 XML Compared to Other Formats
1.3.1.1 JSON
1.3.1.2 RDF
1.4 XQuery Compared to XSLT
1.5 A Great Digital Humanities Community
1.6 Questions
Chapter 2: Setting Up Your XQuery Environment
2.1 Installing Java
2.2 Setting Up BaseX
2.3 Setting Up eXist
2.4 Setting Up oXygen
2.5 Setting Up Saxon
2.6 Accessing Online Companion Materials
2.7 Preserving and Sharing Code with GitHub
2.8 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 3: Reviewing XML and Related Standards
3.1 History and Goals of XML
3.2 XML Basics
3.2.1 Writing Well-Formed XML
3.2.2 Writing Valid XML
3.3 XML as a Data Standard
3.4 XML Gotchas
3.4.1 Embracing Namespaces
3.4.2 Escaping Strings
3.4.3 Whitespace
3.5 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 4: Finding Your Way Around with XPath
4.1 XPath Axes
4.2 Node Tests by Kind
4.3 XPath’s Abbreviated Syntax
4.4 XPath Functions
4.5 XPath Tips and Tricks
4.5.1 Wildcards
4.5.2 Value Comparisons
4.5.3 Selecting Multiple Element Names with the Union Operator
4.5.4 Selecting the “Nth” Item or a Range of Items
4.6 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 5: XQuery Basics
5.1 The Parts of an XQuery
5.2 Enclosed Expressions and Curly Braces
5.3 FLWOR Expressions
5.3.1 Binding Variables
5.3.2 Iterating over Variables
5.3.3 Filtering Results
5.3.3.1 A Short Note on Comparisons
5.3.4 Ordering Results
5.3.5 Counting Results
5.3.6 Grouping Results
5.4 Conditional Expressions
5.4.1 Effective Boolean Values
5.4.2 The Else Clause Is Required: A Few Tips About Using Conditional Expressions
5.4.3 Chaining Conditional Expressions
5.5 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 6: Next Steps with XQuery
6.1 The Built-In Function Library
6.2 Writing Your Own Functions
6.3 Using Library Modules
6.3.1 Importing Library Modules
6.3.2 Creating Your Own Library Modules
6.3.3 Public and Private Functions
6.3.4 Wrapping Up
6.4 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 7: Advanced XQuery
7.1 String Constructors
7.2 Maps and Arrays
7.2.1 Revisiting Sequences
7.2.2 Maps
7.2.3 Arrays
7.2.4 Combining Maps and Arrays
7.2.5 Modifying Maps and Arrays
7.3 Windowing
7.3.1 Understanding Tuple Streams
7.3.2 Tumbling Windows
7.3.3 Sliding Windows
7.4 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 8: Thinking Functionally
8.1 Immutability
8.2 Maps
8.3 Folds
8.4 Recursion
8.4.1 Transforming Data with Recursive Typeswitch
8.5 Higher-Order Functions
8.6 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 9: Modifying Your Data with XQuery Update
9.1 Copying Data
9.2 Transform Expressions
9.2.1 Insert
9.2.2 Delete
9.2.3 Replace
9.2.4 Rename
9.2.5 Transform With
9.3 Updating Expressions
9.3.1 Changing the World
9.3.2 Updating Functions
9.4 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 10: Searching with XQuery Full Text
10.1 Finding Patterns with XPath
10.1.1 Searching Substrings
10.1.2 Regular Expressions
10.2 The Full Text Contains Text Operator
10.2.1 Scoring
10.2.2 Any-All Options
10.2.3 Cardinality
10.2.4 Positional Filters
10.2.5 Weighting
10.2.6 Match Options
10.3 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 11: Handling Errors Gracefully
11.1 Documenting Your XQuery with XQDoc
11.2 Catching Mistakes Before You Run Anything
11.3 Catching Errors at Runtime
11.4 Unit Testing with XQuery
11.5 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 12: Using XQuery with Other Digital Humanities Tools
12.1 XQuery and JSON
12.2 XQuery and CSV
12.3 XQuery and XSLT
12.4 Questions and Exercises
Chapter 13: Conclusion
13.1 XQuery Paralipomena
13.1.1 Web Applications
13.1.2 Databases
13.2 The XQuery Community
13.2.1 Books
13.2.2 Digital Forums
13.2.3 Conferences and Training
13.3 Questions and Exercises
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Authors
Index