EXist

eXist is an open source database management system entirely built on XML technology, also called a native XML database. Unlike most relational database management systems, eXist uses XQuery, which is a W3C Recommendation, to manipulate its data.

eXist Benefits

eXist allows software developers to persist XML data without writing extensive middleware. eXist follows and extends many W3C XML standards such as XQuery. eXist also supports REST interfaces for interfacing with AJAX-type web forms. Applications such as XForms may save their data by using just a few lines of code.

eXist Standards and Technologies

eXist has support for the following standards and technologies

• XPath - XML Path language
• XQuery - XML Query langage
• WebDAV - Web distributed authoring and versioning
• REST - Representational state transfer (URL encoding)
• SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol
• XACML - XML Access Control Language
• XInclude - server-side include file processing (limited support)

eXist History

eXist was created in 2000 by Wolfgang Meier who still is the lead developer as of 2008. In September 2006, it reached version 1.0 and 1.1 (new numbering scheme). Current development activities are on the 1.2.x versions.

eXist was nominated in 2006 as the best XML database of the year by InfoWorld.

See also

• XML database
• XQuery
• XPath
• WebDAV
• SOAP

External links

• eXist Database
• eXist Database Demoserver
• eXist wiki
• eXist Discussion List
• XML Query Test Suite

References

• InfoWorld Award