Quark: an efficient XQuery full-text implementation

Abstract

The XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Full-text (XQFT) language has been developed by the W3C to extend XQuery and XPath with full-text search capabilities. XQFT allows users to specify a mix of structured and complex full-text predicates, and also allows users to score/rank such queries. The power and flexibility of XQFT gives rise to two interesting questions. First, is it possible to efficiently integrate a full-function XML query language with sophisticated full-text search? Second, is it possible to score and rank arbitrary XQuery and XQFT queries? In this demonstration, we present evidence that it is indeed possible to achieve the above goals. We demonstrate the Quark open-source data management system and show how we can seamlessly and efficiently integrate structured and unstructured search over XML data. In particular, we demonstrate (a) techniques for efficiently evaluating keyword search over virtual XML views, and (b) a framework for scoring both structured and full-text predicates.