Version 2.0
Copyright © 2007-2008 Axyana Software
December 22, 2007
Table of Contents
- 1. The 'XML Libraries' tab
- 2. The 'XQuery' tab
- 3. Dialogs
Qizx Studio is a graphic interface built on top of the API provided by the Qizx engine.
It serves several purposes:
Offer an easy-to-use interface for administering XML Libraries.
Offer an interactive tool to edit and execute XQuery queries.
Demonstrate most of the functionalities of Qizx.
This documentation assumes that you have at least basic notions about XQuery and Qizx (XML Library, Collection, Document).
This tab is used to manage XML Libraries: creation, browsing, maintenance.
Note
In Qizx/open, this tab is absent.
It is divided in three views:
Library Browser (left side): a tree view to browse XML Libraries and contained Collections
Metadata Properties view (top right): displays the properties of a selected Document or Collection
Contents of Document view (bottom right): displays the contents of a selected XML Document.
This view displays the contents of a XML Library Group as a tree.
Objects displayed:
XML Library Group
: the currently opened group of Libraries.XML Library
: a library belonging to the groupCollection
: a Collection inside a LibraryDocument
: a well-formed XML document stored in a Collection.
Each kind of object has an associated right-click menu, which allow diverse operations:
XML Library Group:
Close Library Group: closes the current group of Libraries.
Passes in a mode where no Library is available. Note that it is still possible to run XQuery expressions, as long as they don't perform queries on a Library. This is equivalent to using Qizx/open.
Open Library Group: opens a group of Libraries located in a directory. A file chooser appears to select that directory.
This command also allows opening a single XML Library by selecting its root directory: It is a special case where the Library Group has no defined location, and therefore creating other libraries is not possible.
Create Library Group: creates a group of Libraries in a directory. This directory is first selected by a file chooser. It must be empty or non-existent. The Library Group is created in the directory, then a dialog asks for the name of the first Library to be created inside the group.
Create Library: allows creating supplemental Libraries inside the current group.
XML Library:
Import Documents: to store XML documents into the selected Library (in the root Collection); see the Import Documents dialog.
Use Library as Query domain: query domain means the default root of a XQuery/XPath path expression. For example, assume that you have a Library containing the plays of Shakespeare (as marked up by Jon Bosak), that you select the Library as the query domain, then the query
//SCENEwill return allSCENEelements in the Library. Note the particular query//SCENEhas no explicit root or start-point. It uses here the default query domain.Indexing: a sub-menu that deals with indexing specifications.
Indexing Specification: load a new specification written in XML. See details here.
Rebuild all indexes: this operation is normally required after changing the indexing specifications.
Optimize Library: this a compaction operation that can slightly improve the performance of queries on the Library. It is normally performed automatically after a certain number of transactions.
Backup Library: this command makes a backup copy of a Library to an external directory.
Delete Library: this command physically destroys the selected Library.
Collection:
Use as Query domain: query domain means the default root of a XQuery/XPath path expression (See here for more details). If a Collection is used as query domain, the query is restricted to all documents contained within the Collection at any level.
Import Documents: command used to store XML documents into the Collection. Invokes the Import Documents dialog.
Create Sub-Collection: asks for the name of a Collection which will be child of the selected collection..
Copy Collection: this command allows copying the selected Collection and all its contents (sub-collections and documents) to another location in the same Library.
Rename Collection: this command allows changing the name or the location of the collection.
Delete Collection: this command destroys the selected Collection and all its contents (sub-collections and documents).
Document:
Use as Query domain: query domain means the default root of a XQuery/XPath path expression (See here for more details). If a Document is used as query domain, the query is restricted to this particular document. For example if the query domain is the document
/coll/doc1.xml, the query//TITLEis equivalent todoc("/coll/doc1.xml")//TITLE.Export Document: command used to extract the XML contents of the document into a local file. Invokes the Export Document dialog which allows choosing serialization options.
Copy Document: this command allows copying the selected Document to another location in the same Library.
Rename Document: this command allows changing the name or the location of the document.
Delete Document: this command destroys the selected Document.
This view displays the properties (also called metadata) of the currently selected Library member, i.e Document or Collection.
The name (in blue) and the value of the property are displayed.
Note: in the current version, there is no facility for editing the value of a property or adding/deleting properties.
This view displays the XML contents of a selected document. It should be empty if no document is selected.
With the button 
, you can save the document to a file. This invokes the Document Export Dialog.
This tab is used to edit and execute XQuery queries.
It is divided in three views:
Query editor (top left): a text editor with execution button and query history.
Messages view (bottom left): displays compilation and execution messages.
Query Results (right): displays the items of the result sequence.
This area is a basic text editor of XQuery source code, performing syntax coloring.
A file can be loaded in the editor through the menu → , and conversely the source code can be saved with menu → .
Caution
No check is performed when saving or when exiting the application, however the query history (see below) keeps trace of all queries entered.
Specifying the path of a XQuery source file in the command-line of Qizx Studio will automatically load the file. This happens if the file extension (in principle .xq) has been associated with the Qizx Studio application, depending on the Operating System used.
The editor has several buttons and controls in the tool-bar above:
The button 
compiles the current query and evaluates it. The result sequence is displayed in the Result View. A message in the Message View below tells the number of items in the result sequence, and the time in milliseconds taken by the evaluation.
A lengthy evaluation can be canceled with the button 
. No results are displayed.
The history keeps trace of the most recent query scripts evaluated. It is a drop-down menu 
displaying an abridged form of the query. To see more of the query, stop the mouse on the menu item and the query appears as a tooltip.
clears the editor, to type a new expression.This view displays the result sequence produced by the evaluation of a XQuery expression.
Simple items (integer, string, etc) are displayed with their type.
Node items are displayed either in "markup" style, looking like XML.
Results are displayed by pages of 100 items.
The two vertical arrows move the position of the displayed page by 100 items forward or backward.
This command saves the whole result sequence onto a file.
Note that the resulting file will not in general represent a well-formed XML document, unless the result sequence contains a single Node. A message signals when the result is not well-formed.
The invoked dialog allows choosing serialization options. Some of these options (HTML) do not always make sense, depending on the actual results.
Note
In Qizx/open, only the XML Catalogs and Error Log dialogs are available.
A dialog used to define XML Catalogs used when documents are imported.
Qizx supports the OASIS XML Catalogs specifications.
The dialog edits the value of the system property "xml.catalog.files" which can contain a semicolon-separated list of catalog files.
It is possible to add file paths and URLs to the list.
This dialog allows creating a child Collection of the selected Collection.
It simply prompts for the name of a child collection. This name must not contain the slash '/' character.
This dialog allows parsing, storing and indexing one or several XML documents into a Collection inside a XML Library.
An import operation is performed in two steps:
Create an import list of XML files or of directories. This list displays the path, the number of files (for directories), the total size in bytes, the filter used (for directories).
Push the button "".
To Add a file or directory (or several) to the list, use the button "" and select the file(s) or directory.
For directories, you may first want to choose a filter for contained files. a new filter can be typed in the combo-box.
Items can be removed from the list by selecting them and using the button Remove, or the button "".
DTD and Schema are resolved through XML catalogs. The XML Catalogs menu allows editing the catalogs.
Parsing errors are reported in the Messages area at bottom.
This dialog is used for extracting a selected Document from a Library and write its contents back to a file.
The dialog allows choosing the file and Serialization options.
It is also used for exporting the results of a XQuery evaluation.
This dialog allows adding a new property and editing an existing property. It is invoked by right-clicking on the name of a property.
Properties are typed. The possible types are currently:
String.
long (
xs:integer).double (
xs:double).Date (
java.util.Date)boolean (
xs:boolean).Node: a single node (generally an element).
The value can be edited in string form. The type selected with the Type combo-box is then used to parse the value accordingly. When the type Node is selected, the value can actually be any XML Query expression returning a single node (e.g a node constructor).
This dialog allows defining and changing the Indexing Specifications. See Chapter 6, Configuring the indexing process for more information about Indexing Specifications.
There are three ways of modifying the Indexing Specifications:
Directly edit basic specifications using the simple editor presented in the dialog. This editor allows editing the most common indexing properties, but is too limited to handle all the Indexing capabilities.
Load a specification file (XML format described in the documentation), using the button
Reset Indexing specifications to the default value (button "").
After any change (when using the button ), the user is suggested to rebuild the indexes entirely. This is strongly recommended for avoidance of inconsistencies in query results.
This is a simple dialog through which the indexes can be rebuilt entirely, using the current Indexing Specifications.
It is invoked automatically after a change in the Indexing Specification Dialog.
Please note that since Qizx 2.1, re-indexing is a synchronous operation. A progress bar is displayed by the dialog.
This is a simple dialog through which the XML Library can be put into an "optimal" state. This operation involves compacting the document storage and the indexes, if necessary.
Please note that since Qizx 2.1, optimizing a Library is a synchronous operation. A progress bar is displayed by the dialog.
This dialog prompts you for a directory in the file system where the Library will be saved. The directory must be non-existent or empty.
This is a ``hot backup'' which saves a snapshot of the database: any modification made by another connection during the backup will be ignored. This is meaningful and useful in a multi-user environment, like a Web Application running in a servlet container.
The Restore operation consists simply of moving or copying the directory of the backup Library to the place of the original Library (see Administrator section of the manual for details).
This non-modal dialog appears when a serious error is detected by the Library manager.
Typically it appears if you try to use a XML Library that is already locked by another instance of the Qizx engine (an instance of Qizx Studio, of the qizx command-line tool, or one of your applications).