XQuery Hello World Example: How To Write and Execute XQuery Program on Linux OS

Question: I would like to understand the basics of how to write and execute XQuery program on Linux OS. Can you explain it with a simple example?

Answer: In this article, let us review very quickly how to write a basic Hello World XQuery program and execute XQuery program on Linux or Unix OS.

1. Write a Hello World XQuery Program

Create the helloworld program using a Vim editor as shown below.

$ vim helloworld

(: Hello World with XQuery :)
let $i := "Hello World!"
return $i

A very simple version of hello world

$ vim helloworld-simple
"Hello World!"

Note: Comment in XQuery starts with “(:”, and ends with “:)”.

2. Make sure XQuery Interpreter is installed on your system

Make sure XQuery interpreter xqilla is installed on your system as shown below.

$ which xqilla
/usr/bin/xqilla

Installing XQilla interpreter

If you don’t have XQuery interpreter, install it as shown below.

$ sudo apt-get install xqilla

3. Execute the XQuery Program

You can execute using xqilla helloworld.

$ xqilla helloworld
Hello World!

( or )
$ xqilla helloworld-simple
Hello World!

Note: As XQuery is an interpreted language, you don’t have the compilation step similar to the C program.

4. Additional XQuery Resources

• Introduction to XQuery
• Learn XQuery in 10 Minutes: An XQuery Tutorial