Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

May 16, 2019

Brzozowski derivatives – Invisible XML – Thinking, Wishing, Saying – Must be … Balisage 2019!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 1:20 pm

Balisage 2019 Program Announced!

An awesome lineup of topics and speakers await Balisage 2019 goers. From the expected, standoff markup in browsers (yes, that usual fare at Balisage) to re-invention of markup “seen” when looking at a file with no markup (HyTime) and beyond, you are in for a real treat.

I saw several slots for late-breaking news so if you have something really profound and coherent to say, you’d best be polishing it now. Just looking at the current program gives you an idea of the competition for slots.

Why attend? General Eric Shinseki said it best:

If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more.

Don’t risk irrelevance! Attend Balisage 2019!

February 24, 2019

eXist-db 5.0.0 RC6

Filed under: eXist,XML,XML Database,XPath,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 4:35 pm

eXist-db 5.0.0 RC6

RC5 was released on November 21, 2018 so there are a number of new features and bug fixes to grab your interest in RC 6.

Features:

  • New De-duplicating BLOB store for binary documents – see https://blog.adamretter.org.uk/blob-deduplication/
  • More elaborate XPath expressions in the Lucene index config of collection.xconf are now supported
  • New non-blocking lock-free implementation of the Transaction Manager
  • CData serialization now respects the output:cdata-section-elements option
  • New XQuery function util:eval-and-serialize for dynamic XQuery evaluation and serialization.
  • New XQuery function util:binary-doc-content-digest to retrieve a digest of a Binary Document
  • … and others.

Bug fixes:

  • Fixed Lucene term range queries
  • Copying an XML Resource now correctly removes any nodes that it replaces
  • Fixed a memory leak with XQuery serializers
  • Fixed Garbage Collection churn issue with serialization
  • Fixed Backup/Restore progress reporting
  • XQuery Library Modules on the Java Classpath are now correctly resolved from the importing XQuery module
  • … and others.

Although not ready for production, these new features and bug fixes should have you scurrying to download eXist-db 5.0.0 RC6!

PS: Remember there are only 48 days left for paper submissions to Balisage 2019! Are you going to be using the latest RC for eXist?

January 9, 2019

Summer is Coming! Balisage is Coming! Papers Due April 12, 2019!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Database,XML Query Rewriting,XML Schema,XPath,XProc,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 7:52 pm

From a recent email about Balisage 2019:

Some “Balisage: The Markup Conference 2019” dates are coming soon:

March 29, 2019 — Peer-review applications due
April 12, 2019 — Paper submissions due
July 30 — August 2, 2019 — Balisage: The Markup Conference
July 29, 2019 — Pre-conference Symposium – Topic to be announced https://www.balisage.net/

Balisage: where serious markup practitioners and theoreticians meet every August.

A colleague recently asked me to share the program for Balisage 2019 to help support a request to attend. What, I was asked, will we talk about at Balisage 2019. I replied “It will be a variety of topics relating to markup, but we won’t know the specifics until May.” “Why? It seems like you should know that now.” was the response. “Why don’t you just decide who you want to talk about what and assign topics?” “Because that would not be a contributed paper conference, it would be some other sort of event!”

Balisage *is* a contributed paper conference, and the submissions from people who want to speak drive the program, the hallway conversations, and the whole tone of Balisage!

If you want to speak at Balisage 2019, if you want to help shape the conversation, if you have an idea, experience, opinion, or question relating to markup, please submit a paper to Balisage 2019!

We solicit papers on any aspect of markup and its uses; topics include but ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

• Cutting-edge applications of XML and related technologies
• Integration of XML with other technologies (e.g., content management, XSLT, XQuery)
• Performance issues in parsing, XML database retrieval, or XSLT processing
• Development of angle-bracket-free user interfaces for non-technical users
• Deployment of XML systems for enterprise data
• Design and implementation of XML vocabularies
• Case studies of the use of XML for publishing, interchange, or archiving
• Alternatives to XML/JSON/whatever
• Expressive power and application adequacy of XSD, Relax NG, DTDs, Schematron, and other schema languages
• Invisible XML

Detailed Call for Participation: https://www.balisage.net/Call4Participation.html
Call for Peer Reviewers: https://www.balisage.net/peer/ReviewAppForm.html
About Balisage: https://www.balisage.net/

For more information: info@balisage.net or +1 301 315 9631

Papers are due for Balisage in a little more than 90 days.

Anyone doing a topic map paper this year?

“If you can point to it, we can identify it. If we can identify it, we can map it. If we can map it, …,” well, you know how the rest of it goes.

Data silos continue to exist because they are armor. Armor that protects some stakeholders from prying eyes. Up for a little peeping?

October 31, 2018

BaseX 9.1: The Autumn Edition [No Weaponized Email Leaks for Mid-Term Elections to Report]

Filed under: BaseX,XML,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 3:41 pm

Christian Gruin writes in an email:

Dear XML and XQuery aficionados,

It’s been exactly 5 months ago when BaseX 9 was released, and we are happy to announce version 9.1 of our XML framework, database system
and XQuery 3.1 processor! The latest release is online:

http://basex.org

The most exciting addition is support for WebSockets, which enable you to do bidirectional (full-duplex) client/server communication with
XQuery web applications:

http://docs.basex.org/wiki/WebSockets

Moreover, we have added convenient syntax extensions (ternary if, Elvis operator, if without else) to XQuery. Some of them may be made available in other implementations of XQuery as well (we’ll keep you updated):

http://docs.basex.org/wiki/XQuery_Extensions#Expressions

Other new features are as follows:

XQuery:
– set local locks via pragmas and function annotations
– Database Module: faster processing of value index functions
– Jobs Module: record and return registration times
– ENFORCEINDEX option: support for predicates with dynamic values
– Update Module, update:output: support for caching maps and arrays

GUI:
– Mac, Windows: Improved rendering support for latest Java versions
– XQuery editor: choose and display current query context

Visit http://docs.basex.org to get more information on the added features.

Your feedback is welcome! Have fun,

Christian
BaseX Team

I know of no examples of weaponized email leaks using BaseX for the mid-term elections in less than a week.

That absence is more than a little disappointing because industrial strength weapons are available, such as BaseX, and computer security remains on a Hooterville level of robustness.

Despite this missed opportunity, there are elections scheduled (still) for 2020.

September 21, 2018

Senate GMail Attack – eXist-db 5.0.0 RC 4 Release – Coincidence?

Filed under: Cybersecurity,eXist,Government,XML,XML Database,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 6:16 pm

First I see Senators’ Gmail accounts targeted by foreign hackers from today that reads in part:

The personal Gmail accounts of an unspecified number of US senators and Senate staff have been targeted by foreign government hackers, a Google spokesperson confirmed to CNN on Thursday.

then I see in my Twitter feed:

[eXist-db] v5.0.0-RC4 – September 21, 2018.

The campaign season has been devoid of any Clinton-like email leaks, which is both disappointing and a little surprising.

It worked so well last time, taking no news office gossip and by timed release, make back-biting chatter into widely reported news.

You should grab a copy of eXist-db v.5.0.0-RC4 or the current stable version. Practicing now will keep you in shape for any flood of congressional emails.

eXistDB is NOT in league with any hackers anywhere.

I like feeding the paranoid delusions of the IC with groundless gossip. They will write it down, talk about it, do research, all the while they are not out harming US citizens and/or hopefully citizens of any other countries.

August 2, 2018

eXist-db 5.0.0 RC 3 [Prepping for Assange Data Tsunami]

Filed under: .Net,eXist,XML,XML Database,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 10:40 am

eXist-db 5.0.0 RC 3

One new feature and several bugs fixes over RC 2, but thought I should mention it for Assange Data Tsunami preppers.

I have deliberately avoided contact with any such preppers but you can read my advice at: username: 4julian password: $etJulianFree!2Day.

The gist is that sysadmins should, with appropriate cautions, create accounts with “username: 4julian password: $etJulianFree!2Day,” in the event that Julian Assange is taken into custory (a likely event).

If one truth teller (no Wikileaks release has ever been proven false or modified) disturbs the world, creating a tsunami of secret, classified, restricted, proprietary data, may shock it to its senses.

Start prepping for the Assange Data Tsunami today!

PS: Yes, there are a variety of social media events, broadcasts, etc. being planned. Wish them all well but governments respond to bleeding more than pleading. In this case, bleeding data seems appropriate.

May 29, 2018

Balisage Late-Breaking News Deadline – 6 July 2018 – Attract/Spot a Fed!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 7:10 pm

Balisage 2018 Call for Late-breaking News

From the post:


Proposals for late-breaking slots must be received at info@balisage.net by July 6, 2018. Selection of late-breaking proposals will be made by the Balisage conference committee, instead of being made in the course of the regular peer-review process. (emphasis in original)

The Def Con conference attendees play spot the fed.

But spot the fed requires some feds in order to play.

Feds show up at hacker conferences. For content or the company of people with poor personal hygiene.

Let’s assume it’s the content.

What content for a markup paper will attract undercover federal agents?

Success means playing spot the fed at Balisage 2018.

Topics anyone?

May 23, 2018

Balisage 2018 Program!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 12:40 pm

The Balisage 2018 program has hit the Web!

Among the goodies on the agenda:

  • Implementing and using concurrent document structures
  • White-hat web crawling: Industrial strength web crawling for serious content acquisition
  • Easing the road to declarative programming in XSLT for imperative programmers
  • Fractal information is
  • Scaling XML using a Beowulf cluster

That’s a random sampling from the talk already scheduled!

Even more intriguing are the open spots left for “late-breaking” news.

Perhaps you have some “late-breaking” XML related news to share?

I haven’t seen the 2018 Call for Late-Breaking papers but if the 2017 Call for Late-Breaking papers is any guide, time is running out!

Enjoy!

May 17, 2018

Xidel – HTML/XML/JSON data extraction tool

Filed under: Web Scraping,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 7:12 pm

Xidel – HTML/XML/JSON data extraction tool

From the webpage:


Features

It supports:

  • Extract expressions:
    • CSS 3 Selectors: to extract simple elements
    • XPath 3.0: to extract values and calculate things with them
    • XQuery 3.0: to create new documents from the extracted values
    • JSONiq: to work with JSON apis
    • Templates: to extract several expressions in an easy way using a annotated version of the page for pattern-matching
    • XPath 2.0/XQuery 1.0: compatibility mode for the old XPath/XQuery version
  • Following:
    • HTTP Codes: Redirections like 30x are automatically followed, while keeping things like cookies
    • Links: It can follow all links on a page as well as some extracted values
    • Forms: It can fill in arbitrary data and submit the form
  • Output formats:
    • Adhoc: just prints the data in a human readable format
    • XML: encodes the data as XML
    • HTML: encodes the data as HTML
    • JSON: encodes the data as JSON
    • bash/cmd: exports the data as shell variables
  • Connections: HTTP / HTTPS as well as local files or stdin
  • Systems: Windows (using wininet), Linux (using synapse+openssl), Mac (synapse)

Xidel is a very good excuse to practice your XML (XPath/XQuery) on a daily basis!

Not to mention being an interchangeable way to share web scraping scripts for websites.

Enjoy!

May 1, 2018

Oracle XQuery Processor for Java (But Why?)

Filed under: Java,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 7:45 pm

I saw an interesting post by Jay Stidhar titled: How to Install and Use Oracle XQuery Processor for Java.

Interesting in the sense of why would Stidhar or anyone else, encourage the use of the Oracle XQuery processor?

You don’t have to do a deep technical dive to be dismayed by the Oracle XQuery processor. Just take a look at the Oracle Technology Network License Agreement which you have to accept before downloading the software. It took three screen shots for me to capture it for preservation purposes.

OK, I won’t make you read all of it! It starts downhill early on and only gets worse:


Oracle grants You a nonexclusive, nontransferable, limited license to internally use the Programs, subject to the restrictions stated in this Agreement, only for the purpose of developing, testing, prototyping, and demonstrating Your application and only as long as Your application has not been used for any data processing, business, commercial, or production purposes, and not for any other purpose.

Wow!

To summarize:

  1. [O]nly for the purpose of developing, testing, prototyping, and demonstrating Your application
  2. [O]nly as long as Your application has not been used for any data processing, business, commercial, or production purposes, and not for any other purpose.

Once your application is used for “…any data processing, business, commercial, or production purposes…,” your license for the Oracle XQuery processor may terminate.

Who knew?

There are other restrictions and conditions that make the Oracle XQuery processor unattractive. Discover those for yourself.

Check the Twitter archives of @XQuery for a number of open source and commercial XQuery software packages with less onerous licensing.

April 24, 2018

BaseX 9.0.1 (tool maintenance)

Filed under: BaseX,XML,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 3:17 pm

BaseX 9.0.1 (Maintenance Release):

Welcome to our BaseX 9.0.1 maintenance release. An update is highly recommended: The major release had a critical bug, regarding the storage of short non-ASCII Unicode strings.

This is the changelog:

Critical Bug Fixes

  • Storage: Short strings with extended Unicode characters fixed
  • XQuery: Nested path optimizations reenabled (e.g. in functions)
  • XQuery: map:merge, size computation fixed
  • XQuery: node ordering across multiple database instances fixed

Improvements

  • GUI: Better Java 9 support (DPI scaling, font rendering)
  • XQuery, collections: faster document root tests
  • New R client. Thanks Ben Engbers!
  • Linux: exec command used in startup scripts

Minor Bug Fixes

  • XQuery: Allow interruption of tail-call function calls
  • XQuery, HTTP parsing of content-type parameters
  • XQuery, restrict rewriting of filter to path expression
  • GUI: progress feedback when creating databases via double-click

If you want to interfere with, influence, change the outcome of, any of the US 2018 mid-term elections and/or the 2020 Presidential election, you need the latest and greatest in tools, as well as skill at using them.

Upgrade to BaseX 9.0.1 today!

March 23, 2018

BaseX 9.0 – The Spring Edition – 229 Days to US Mid-Term Elections

Filed under: BaseX,Politics,XML,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 7:32 pm

Christian Grün writes:

We are very happy to announce the release of BaseX 9.0!

The new version of our XML database system and XQuery 3.1 processor includes some great new features and a vast number of minor improvements and optimizations. It’s both the usage of BaseX in productive environments as well as the valuable feedback of our open source users that make BaseX better and better, and that allow and motivate us to keep going. Thanks to all of you!

Along with the new release, we invite you to visit our relaunched homepage: http://basex.org/.

Java 8 is now required to run BaseX. The most prominent features of Version 9.0 are:

Sorry! No spoilers here! Grab a copy of BaseX 9.0 and read Christian’s post for the details.

Take 229 days until the US mid-term elections (November 6, 2018) as fair warning that email leaks are possible (likely?) between now and election day.

The better your skills with BaseX, the better change you have to interfere with, sorry, participate in the 2018 election cycle.

Good luck to us all!

February 9, 2018

XML Prague 2018 Conference Proceedings – Weekend Reading!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Database,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 9:13 pm

XML Prague 2018 Conference Proceedings

Two Hundred and Sixty (260) pages of high quality content on XML!

From the table of contents:

  • Assisted Structured Authoring using Conditional Random Fields – Bert Willems
  • XML Success Story: Creating and Integrating Collaboration Solutions to Improve the Documentation Process – Steven Higgs
  • xqerl: XQuery 3.1 Implementation in Erlang – Zachary N. Dean
  • XML Tree Models for Efficient Copy Operations – Michael Kay
  • Using Maven with XML development projects – Christophe Marchand and Matthieu Ricaud-Dussarget
  • Varieties of XML Merge: Concurrent versus Sequential – Tejas Pradip Barhate and Nigel Whitaker
  • Including XML Markup in the Automated Collation of Literary Text – Elli Bleeker, Bram Buitendijk, Ronald Haentjens Dekker, and Astrid Kulsdom
  • Multi-Layer Content Modelling to the Rescue – Erik Siegel
  • Combining graph and tree – Hans-Juergen Rennau
  • SML – A simpler and shorter representation of XML – Jean-François Larvoire
  • Can we create a real world rich Internet application using Saxon-JS? – Pieter Masereeuw
  • Implementing XForms using interactive XSLT 3.0 – O’Neil Delpratt and Debbie Lockett
  • Life, the Universe, and CSS Tests – Tony Graham
  • Form, and Content – Steven Pemberton
  • tokenized-to-tree – Gerrit Imsieke

I just got a refurbished laptop for reading in bed. Now I have to load XML parsers, etc. on it to use along with reading these proceedings!

Enjoy!

PS: Be sure to thank Jirka Kosek for his tireless efforts promoting XML and XML Prague!

February 5, 2018

Balisage: The Markup Conference 2018 – 77 Days To Paper Submission Deadline!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 8:46 pm

Call for Participation

Submission dates/instructions have dropped!

When:
Dates:

  • 22 March 2018 — Peer review applications due
  • 22 April 2018 — Paper submissions due
  • 21 May 2018 — Speakers notified
  • 8 June 2018 — Late-breaking News submissions due
  • 15 June 2018 — Late-breaking News speakers notified
  • 6 July 2018 — Final papers due from presenters of peer reviewed papers
  • 6 July 2018 — Short paper or slide summary due from presenters of late-breaking news
  • 30 July 2018 — Pre-conference Symposium
  • 31 July –3 August 2018 — Balisage: The Markup Conference
How:
Submit full papers in XML to info@balisage.net
See the pages Instructions for Authors and
Tag Set and Submission Guidelines for details.
Apply to the Peer Review panel

I’ve heard inability to submit valid markup counts in the judging of papers. That may just be rumor or it may be true. I suggest validating your submission.

You should be on the fourth or fifth draft of your paper by now, but be aware the paper submission deadline is April 22, 2018, or 77 days from today!

Looking forward to seeing exceptionally strong papers in the review process and being presented at Balisage!

January 10, 2018

eXist-db – First Upgrade for 2018

Filed under: eXist,XML,XML Database,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 2:06 pm

I usually update from notices of a new version and so rarely visit the eXist-db homepage. My loss.

There’s a cool homepage image. With links to documentation, community, references, but not overwhelmingly so.

Kudos! Oh, the upgrade:

eXist-db v3.6.1 – January 03, 2018

From the release notes:

eXist-db v3.6.1 has just been released. This is a hotfix release, which contains bug fixes for several important issues discovered since eXist-db v3.6.0.

We recommend that all users of eXist 3.6.0 should upgrade to eXist 3.6.1.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed issue where the package manager wrote non-well-formed XML that caused problems during backup/restore. #1620
  • Fixed namespace prefix for attributes and namespace nodes.
  • Made sure the localName of a in memory element is correctly obtained under various namespace declaration conditions
  • Fix for NPE in org.exist.xquery.functions.fn.FunId #1642
  • Several atomic comparisons raise wrong error code #1638
  • General comparison to empty sequence sometimes raises an error #1639
  • Warn if no <target> is found in an EXPath packages’s repo.xml

Backwards Compatibility

  • eXist-db v3.6.1 is backwards binary-compatible as far as v3.0, but not with earlier versions. Users upgrading from previous versions should perform a full backup and restore to migrate their data.

Downloading This Version

eXist-db v3.6.1 is available for download from Bintray. Maven artifacts for eXist-db v3.6.1 are available from our mvn-repo. Mac users of the Homebrew package repository may acquire eXist 3.6.1 directly from there.

Downloading This Version

eXist-db v3.6.1 is available for download from Bintray. Maven artifacts for eXist-db v3.6.1 are available from our mvn-repo. Mac users of the Homebrew package repository may acquire eXist 3.6.1 directly from there.

When 2018 congressional candidate (U.S.) inboxes start dropping, will eXist-db be your tool of choice?

Enjoy!

January 9, 2018

Sessions for XML Prague 2018 – January 10th, Early Bird Deadline!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 8:03 pm

List of sessions for XML Prague 2018

The range of great presentations is no surprise.

That early registration is still open, with this list of presentations, well, that is a surprise!

January 10, 2018 is the deadline for early birds!

From the post:

Unconference day

Schematron Users Meetup
XSL-FO, CSS and Paged Output – hosted by Antenna House
Introduction to CSS for Paged Media
XSpec Users Meetup
oXygen Users Meeup
Creating beautiful documents with the speedata Publisher
eXist-db Community Meetup
XML with Emacs workshop

Friday and Saturday sessions

Bert Willems: Assisted Structured Authoring using Conditional Random Fields
Christophe Marchand and Matthieu Ricaud-Dussarget: Using Maven with XML Projects
Elli Bleeker, Bram Buitendijk, Ronald Haentjens Dekker and Astrid Kulsdom: Including XML Markup in the Automated Collation of Literary Texts
Erik Siegel: Multi-layered content modelling to the rescue
Francis Cave: Does the world need more XML standards?
Gerrit Imsieke: tokenized-to-tree – An XProc/XSLT Library For Patching Back Tokenization/Analysis Results Into Marked-up Text
Hans-Juergen Rennau: Combining graph and tree: writing SHAX, obtaining SHACL, XSD and more
James Fuller: Diff with XQuery
Jean-François Larvoire: SML – A simpler and shorter representation of XML
Johannes Kolbe and Manuel Montero: XML periodic table, XML repository and XSLT checker
Michael Kay: XML Tree Models for Efficient Copy Operations
O’Neil Delpratt and Debbie Lockett: Implementing XForms using interactive XSLT 3:0
Pieter Masereeuw: Can we create a real world rich Internet application using Saxon-JS?
Radu Coravu: A short story about XML encoding and opening very large documents in an XML editing application
Steven Higgs: XML Success Story: Creating and Integrating Collaboration Solutions to Improve the Documentation Process
Steven Pemberton: Form, and Content
Tejas Barhate and Nigel Whitaker: Varieties of XML Merge: Concurrent versus Sequential
Tony Graham: Life, the Universe, and CSS Tests
Vasu Chakkera: Effective XSLT Documentation and its separation from XSLT code:
Zachary Dean: xqerl: XQuery 3:1 Implementation in Erlang

I’m expecting lots of tweets and posts about these presentations!

November 27, 2017

eXist-db v3.6.0 [Prediction for 2018: Multiple data/document leak tsunamis. Are You Ready?]

Filed under: eXist,Government,Government Data,XML,XPath,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 9:28 pm

eXist-db v3.6.0

From the post:

Features

  • Switched Collation support to use ICU4j.
  • Implemented XQuery 3.1 UCA (Unicode Collation Algorithm).
  • Implemented map type parameters for XQuery F&O 3.1 fn:serialize.
  • Implemented declare context item for XQuery 3.0.
  • Implemented XQuery 3.0 Regular Expression’s support for non-capturing groups.
  • Implemented a type-safe DSL for describing and testing transactional operations upon the database.
  • Implemented missing node kind tests in the XQuery parser when using @ on an AbbrevForwardStep.
  • Added AspectJ support to the IntelliJ project files (IntelliJ Ultimate only).
  • Repaired the dependencies in the NetBeans project files.
  • Added support for Travis macOS CI.
  • Added support for AppVeyor Windows CI.
  • Updated third-party dependencies:
    • Apache Commons Codec 1.11
    • Apache Commons Compress 1.15
    • Apache Commons Lang 3.7
    • Eclipse AspectJ 1.9.0.RC1
    • Eclipse Jetty 9.4.7.v20170914
    • EXPath HTTP Client 20171116
    • Java 8 Functional Utilities 1.11
    • JCTools 2.1.1
    • XML Unit 2.4.0

Performance Improvements

  • Compiled XQuery cache is now multi-threaded; concurrency is now per-source.
  • RESTXQ compiled XQuery cache is now multi-threaded; concurrency is now per-query URI.
  • STX Templates Cache is now multithreaded.
  • XML-RPC Server will now use Streaming and GZip compression if supported by the client; enabled in eXist’s Java Admin Client.
  • Reduced object creation overhead in the XML-RPC Server.

Apps

The bundled applications of the Documentation, eXide, and Monex have all been updated to the latest versions.

Prediction for 2018: Multiple data/document leak tsunamis.

Are you prepared?

How are your XQuery skills and tools?

Or do you plan on regurgitating news wire summaries?

November 13, 2017

XML Prague 2017 – 21 Reasons to Attend 2018 – Offensive Use of XQuery

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 8:41 pm

XML Prague 2017 Videos

Need reasons for your attending XML Prague 2018?

The XML Prague 2017 YouTube playlist has twenty-one (21) very good reasons (videos). (You may have to hold the hands of c-suite types if you share the videos with them.)

Two things that I see missing from the presentations, security and offensive use of XQuery.

XML Security

You may have noticed that corporations, governments and others have been hemorrhaging data in 2017 (and before). While legislators wail ineffectually and wish for a 18th century world, the outlook for cybersecurity looks grim for 2018.

XML and XML applications exist in a law of the jungle security context. But there weren’t any presentations on security related issues at XML Prague in 2017. Are you going to break the ice in 2018?

Offensive use of XQuery

XQuery has the power to extract, enhance and transform data to serve your interests, not those of its authors.

I’ve heard the gospel that technologists should disarm themselves and righteously await a better day. Meanwhile, governments, military forces, banks, and their allies loot and rape the Earth and its peoples.

Are data scientists at the NSA, FSB, MSS, MI6, Mossad, CIA, etc., constrained by your “do no evil” creeds?

Present governments or their successors, can move towards more planet and people friendly policies, but they require, ahem, encouragement.

XQuery, which doesn’t depend upon melting data centers, supercomputers, global data vacuuming, etc., can help supply that encouragement.

How would you use XQuery to transform government data to turn it against its originator?

November 11, 2017

eXist-db Docker Image Builder

Filed under: eXist,XML,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 9:15 pm

eXist-db Docker Image Builder

From the webpage:

Pre-built eXist-db Docker images have been published on Docker Hub. You can skip to Running an eXist-db Docker Image if you just want to use the provided Docker images.

To ease your use of eXist-db or create a customized distribution of eXist-db, complete with additional resources, this rocks.

November 3, 2017

XPath and XQuery Assertions in SoapUI

Filed under: XPath,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 11:06 am

The video, XPath and XQuery assertions in SoapUI in depth, drew my attention to SoapUI, but be forewarned the sound quality was so bad I could not follow it. Still, I can now mention SoapUI and that’s not a bad thing.

The SoapUI documentation has extended examples for Validating XML Messages, Getting started with Assertions, and Transferring Property Values.

SoapUI has the usual hand-waving about security but since critical airport security plans can be found USB litter, I’m not sure anyone bothers. Your Amazon account root password is probably on a sticky note on someone’s monitor. Go check.

October 12, 2017

XML Prague 2018 – Apology to Procrastinators

Filed under: Conferences,Cybersecurity,Security,XML,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 10:49 am

Apology to all procrastinators, I just saw the Call for Proposals for XML Prague 2018

You only have 50 days (until November 30, 2017) to submit your proposals for XML Prague 2018.

Efficient people don’t realize that 50 days is hardly enough time to put off thinking about a proposal topic, much less fail to write down anything for a proposal. Completely unreasonable demand but, do try to procrastinate quickly and get a proposal done for XML Prague 2018.

The suggestion of doing a “…short video…” seems rife with potential for humor and/or NSFW images. Perhaps XML Prague will post the best “…short videos…” to YouTube?

From the webpage:

XML Prague 2018 now welcomes submissions for presentations on the following topics:

  • Markup and the Extensible Web – HTML5, XHTML, Web Components, JSON and XML sharing the common space
  • Semantic visions and the reality – micro-formats, semantic data in business, linked data
  • Publishing for the 21th century – publishing toolchains, eBooks, EPUB, DITA, DocBook, CSS for print, …
  • XML databases and Big Data – XML storage, indexing, query languages, …
  • State of the XML Union – updates on specs, the XML community news, …
  • XML success stories – real-world use cases of successful XML deployments

There are several different types of slots available during the conference and you can indicate your preferred slot during submission:

30 minutes
15 minutes
These slots are suitable for normal conference talks.
90 minutes (unconference)
Ideal for holding users meeting or workshop during the unconference day (Thursday).

All proposals will be submitted for review by a peer review panel made up of the XML Prague Program Committee. Submissions will be chosen based on interest, applicability, technical merit, and technical correctness.

Authors should strive to contain original material and belong in the topics previously listed. Submissions which can be construed as product or service descriptions (adverts) will likely be deemed inappropriate. Other approaches such as use case studies are welcome but must be clearly related to conference topics.

Proposals can have several forms:

full paper
In our opinion still ideal and classical way of proposing presentation. Full paper gives reviewers enough information to properly asses your proposal.
extended abstract
Concise 1-4 page long description of your topic. If you do not have time to write full paper proposal this is one possible way to go. Try to make your extended abstract concrete and specific. Too short or vague abstract will not convince reviewers that it is worth including into the conference schedule.
short video (max. 5 minutes)
If you are not writing person but you still have something interesting to present. Simply capture short video (no longer then 5 minutes) containing part of your presentation. Video can capture you or it can be screen cast.

I mentioned XSLT security attacks recently, perhaps you could do something similar on XQuery? Other ways to use XML and related technologies to breach cybersecurity?

Do submit proposals and enjoy XML Prague 2018!

October 4, 2017

Procrastinators – Dates/Location for Balisage: The Markup Conference 2018

Filed under: Conferences,JSON,XML,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 12:48 pm

Procrastinators can be caught short, without enough time for proper procrastination on papers and slides.

To insure ample time for procrastination, Balisage: The Markup Conference 2018 has published its dates and location.

31 July 2018–3 August 2018 … Balisage: The Markup Conference
30 July 2018 … Symposium – topic to be announced
CAMBRiA Hotel & Suites
1 Helen Heneghan Way
Rockville, Maryland 20850
USA

For indecisive procrastinators, Balisage offers suggestions for your procrastination:

The 2017 program included papers discussing XML vocabularies, cutting-edge digital humanities, lossless JSON/XML roundtripping, reflections on concrete syntax and abstract syntax, parsing and generation, web app development using the XML stack, managing test cases, pipelining and micropipelinging, electronic health records, rethinking imperative algorithms for XSLT and XQuery, markup and intellectual property, digitiziging Ethiopian and Eritrean manuscripts, exploring “shapes” in RDF and their relationship to schema validation, exposing XML data to users of varying technical skill, test-suite management, and use case studies about large conversion applications, DITA, and SaxonJS.

Innovative procrastinators can procrastinate on other related topics, including any they find on the Master Topic List (ideas procrastinated on for prior Balisage conferences).

Take advantage of this opportunity to procrastinate early and long on your Balisage submissions. You and your audience will be glad you did!

PS: Don’t procrastinate on saying thank you to Tommie Usdin and company for another year of Balisage. Balisage improves XML theory and practice every year it is held.

September 19, 2017

XQuery (Walmsley – Updated15 Sept. 2017) – Pagination Differences

Filed under: XML,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 6:20 pm

For those of you smart enough to own a copy of XQuery by Priscilla Walmsley, it was updated as of 15 September 2017.

There’s a four (4) page difference in length between the original edition (758 pages) and the updated version (762 pages).

One two (2) page addition is the new section “Specifying Serialization Parameters by Using a Map” plus an unnecessary page break following the introduction to example 13-4 (of the updated version).

Chapter 13, Inputs and Outputs, now ends on page 228 instead of 226.

The other two pages arise from the insertion of array:put following prefix-from-QName and before map:put, in Appendix A. Built-in Function Reference.

I haven’t found any mention of the pagination difference, which will be confusing for students consulting Walmsley.

Since the edition is not being updated, putting the added four pages in an Appendix D or even in preface material numbered i, ii, …, would have preserved references across the first and second versions.

XQuery should be widely used. Creating unnecessary friction for using XQuery resources doesn’t advance that goal.

September 14, 2017

xquerl (“We always do it nice and rough” Tina Turner)

Filed under: Erlang,Functional Programming,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 6:42 pm

xqerl

From the webpage:

Erlang XQuery 3.1 Processor

This is a currently a draft/proof-of-concept. Please don’t try to use it for “real” computing!

It is passing about 91% its (~25k) test cases.

Features it has:

  • Module Feature
  • Higher-Order Function Feature

Features it does not have, but might later:

  • XQuery Update Facility
  • Schema Aware Feature
  • Typed Data Feature
  • Static Typing Feature
  • Serialization Feature

If you want to combine an interest in Erlang along with XQuery 3.1, you have arrived!

Decide for yourself which is the “nice” part and which is the “rough.”

Enjoy!

June 24, 2017

Statistical Functions for XQuery 3.1 (see OpenFormula)

Filed under: Statistics,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 8:46 pm

simple-statsxq by Tim Thompson.

From the webpage:

Loosely inspired by the JavaScript simple-statistics project. The goal of this module is to provide a basic set of statistical functions for doing data analysis in XQuery 3.1.

Functions are intended to be implementation-agnostic.

Unit tests were written using the unit testing module of BaseX.

OpenFormula (Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument)) defines eighty-seven (87) statistical functions.

There are fifty-five (55) financial functions defined by OpenFormula, just in case you are interested.

June 8, 2017

Open data quality – Subject Identity By Another Name

Filed under: Open Data,Record Linkage,Subject Identity,Topic Maps,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 1:03 pm

Open data quality – the next shift in open data? by Danny Lämmerhirt and Mor Rubinstein.

From the post:

Some years ago, open data was heralded to unlock information to the public that would otherwise remain closed. In the pre-digital age, information was locked away, and an array of mechanisms was necessary to bridge the knowledge gap between institutions and people. So when the open data movement demanded “Openness By Default”, many data publishers followed the call by releasing vast amounts of data in its existing form to bridge that gap.

To date, it seems that opening this data has not reduced but rather shifted and multiplied the barriers to the use of data, as Open Knowledge International’s research around the Global Open Data Index (GODI) 2016/17 shows. Together with data experts and a network of volunteers, our team searched, accessed, and verified more than 1400 government datasets around the world.

We found that data is often stored in many different places on the web, sometimes split across documents, or hidden many pages deep on a website. Often data comes in various access modalities. It can be presented in various forms and file formats, sometimes using uncommon signs or codes that are in the worst case only understandable to their producer.

As the Open Data Handbook states, these emerging open data infrastructures resemble the myth of the ‘Tower of Babel’: more information is produced, but it is encoded in different languages and forms, preventing data publishers and their publics from communicating with one another. What makes data usable under these circumstances? How can we close the information chain loop? The short answer: by providing ‘good quality’ open data.

Congratulations to Open Knowledge International on re-discovering the ‘Tower of Babel’ problem that prevents easy re-use of data.

Contrary to Lämmerhirt and Rubinstein’s claim, barriers have not “…shifted and multiplied….” More accurate to say Lämmerhirt and Rubinstein have experienced what so many other researchers have found for decades:


We found that data is often stored in many different places on the web, sometimes split across documents, or hidden many pages deep on a website. Often data comes in various access modalities. It can be presented in various forms and file formats, sometimes using uncommon signs or codes that are in the worst case only understandable to their producer.

The record linkage community, think medical epidemiology, has been working on aspects of this problem since the 1950’s at least (under that name). It has a rich and deep history, focused in part on mapping diverse data sets to a common representation and then performing analysis upon the resulting set.

A common omission in record linkage is to capture in discoverable format, the basis for mapping of the diverse records to a common format. That is subjects represented by “…uncommon signs or codes that are in the worst case only understandable to their producer,” that Lämmerhirt and Rubinstein complain of, although signs and codes need not be “uncommon” to be misunderstood by others.

To their credit, unlike RDF and the topic maps default, record linkage has long recognized that identification consists of multiple parts and not single strings.

Topic maps, at least at their inception, was unaware of record linkage and the vast body of research done under that moniker. Topic maps were bitten by the very problem they were seeking to solve. That being a subject, could be identified many different ways and information discovered by others about that subject, could be nearby but undiscoverable/unknown.

Rather than building on the experience with record linkage, topic maps, at least in the XML version, defaulted to relying on URLs to identify the location of subjects (resources) and/of identifying subjects (identifiers). Avoiding the Philosophy 101 mistakes of RDF, confusing locators and identifiers + refusing to correct the confusion, wasn’t enough for topic maps to become widespread. One suspects in part because topic maps were premised on creating more identifiers for subjects which already had them.

Imagine that your company has 1,000 employees and in order to use a new system, say topic maps, everyone must get a new name. Can’t use the old one. Do you see a problem? Now multiple that by every subject anyone in your company wants to talk about. We won’t run out of identifiers but your staff will certainly run out of patience.

Robust solutions to the open data ‘Tower of Babel’ issue will include the use of multi-part identifications extant in data stores, dynamic creation of multi-part identifications when necessary (note, no change to existing data store), discoverable documentation of multi-part identifications and their mappings, where syntax and data models are up to the user of data.

That sounds like a job for XQuery to me.

You?

May 17, 2017

Balisage: The Markup Conference 2017 Program Now Available

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 3:42 pm

Balisage: The Markup Conference 2017 Program Now Available

An email from Tommie Usdin, Chair, Chief Organizer and herder of markup cats for Balisage advises:

Balisage: where serious markup practitioners and theoreticians meet every August.

The 2017 program includes papers discussing XML vocabularies, cutting-edge digital humanities, lossless JSON/XML roundtripping, reflections on concrete syntax and abstract syntax, parsing and generation, web app development using the XML stack, managing test cases, pipelining and micropipelinging, electronic health records, rethinking imperative algorithms for XSLT and XQuery, markup and intellectual property, why YOU should use (my favorite XML vocabulary), developing a system to aid in studying manuscripts in the tradition of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Highlands, exploring “shapes” in RDF and their relationship to schema validation, exposing XML data to users of varying technical skill, test-suite management, and use case studies about large conversion applications, DITA, and SaxonJS.

Up-Translation and Up-Transformation: A one-day Symposium on the goals, challenges, solutions, and workflows for significant XML enhancements, including approaches, tools, and techniques that may potentially be used for a variety of other tasks. The symposium will be of value not only to those facing up-translation and transformation but also to general XML practitioners seeking to get the most out of their data.

Are you interested in open information, reusable documents, and vendor and application independence? Then you need descriptive markup, and Balisage is your conference. Balisage brings together document architects, librarians, archivists, computer scientists, XML practitioners, XSLT and XQuery programmers, implementers of XSLT and XQuery engines and other markup-related software, semantic-Web evangelists, standards developers, academics, industrial researchers, government and NGO staff, industrial developers, practitioners, consultants, and the world’s greatest concentration of markup theorists. Some participants are busy designing replacements for XML while other still use SGML (and know why they do).

Discussion is open, candid, and unashamedly technical.

Balisage 2017 Program:
http://www.balisage.net/2017/Program.html

Symposium Program:
https://www.balisage.net/UpTransform

NOTE: Members of the TEI and their employees are eligible for discount Balisage registration.

You need to see the program for yourself but the highlights (for me) include: Ethiopic manuscripts (ok, so I have odd tastes), Earley parsers (of particular interest), English Majors (my wife was an English major), and a number of other high points.

Mark your calendar for July 31 – August 4, 2017 – It’s Balisage!

April 19, 2017

Pure CSS crossword – CSS Grid

Filed under: Crossword Puzzle,Education,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 4:22 pm

Pure CSS crossword – CSS Grid by Adrian Roworth.

The UI is slick, although creating the puzzle remains on you.

Certainly suitable for string answers, XQuery/XPath/XSLT expressions, etc.

Enjoy!

March 22, 2017

XQuery 3.1 and Company! (Deriving New Versions?)

Filed under: XML,XPath,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 9:09 am

XQuery 3.1: An XML Query Language W3C Recommendation 21 March 2017

Hurray!

Related reading of interest:

XML Path Language (XPath) 3.1

XPath and XQuery Functions and Operators 3.1

XQuery and XPath Data Model 3.1

These recommendations are subject to licenses that read in part:

No right to create modifications or derivatives of W3C documents is granted pursuant to this license, except as follows: To facilitate implementation of the technical specifications set forth in this document, anyone may prepare and distribute derivative works and portions of this document in software, in supporting materials accompanying software, and in documentation of software, PROVIDED that all such works include the notice below. HOWEVER, the publication of derivative works of this document for use as a technical specification is expressly prohibited.

You know I think the organization of XQuery 3.1 and friends could be improved but deriving and distributing “improved” versions is expressly prohibited.

Hmmm, but we are talking about XML and languages to query and transform XML.

Consider the potential of an query that calls XQuery 3.1: An XML Query Language and materials cited in it, then returns a version of XQuery 3.1 that has definitions from other standards off-set in the XQuery 3.1 text.

Or than inserts into the text examples or other materials.

For decades XML enthusiasts have bruited about dynamic texts but have produced damned few of them (as in zero) as their standards.

Let’s use the “no derivatives” language of the W3C as an incentive to not create another static document but a dynamic one that can grow or contract according to the wishes of its reader.

Suggestions for first round features?

March 16, 2017

Balisage Papers Due in 3 Weeks!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 9:04 pm

Apologies for the sudden lack of posting but I have been working on a rather large data set with XQuery and checking forwards and backwards to make sure it can be replicated. (I hate “it works on my computer.”)

Anyway, Tommie Usdin dropped an email bomb today with a reminder that Balisage papers are due on April 7, 2017.

From her email:

Submissions to “Balisage: The Markup Conference” and pre-conference symposium:
“Up-Translation and Up-Transformation: Tasks, Challenges, and Solutions”
are on April 7.

It is time to start writing!

Balisage: The Markup Conference 2017
August 1 — 4, 2017, Rockville, MD (a suburb of Washington, DC)
July 31, 2017 — Symposium Up-Translation and Up-Transformation
https://www.balisage.net/

Balisage: where serious markup practitioners and theoreticians meet every August. We solicit papers on any aspect of markup and its uses; topics include but are not limited to:

• Web application development with XML
• Informal data models and consensus-based vocabularies
• Integration of XML with other technologies (e.g., content management, XSLT, XQuery)
• Performance issues in parsing, XML database retrieval, or XSLT processing
• Development of angle-bracket-free user interfaces for non-technical users
• Semistructured data and full text search
• Deployment of XML systems for enterprise data
• Web application development with XML
• Design and implementation of XML vocabularies
• Case studies of the use of XML for publishing, interchange, or archiving
• Alternatives to XML
• the role(s) of XML in the application lifecycle
• the role(s) of vocabularies in XML environments

Detailed Call for Participation: http://balisage.net/Call4Participation.html
About Balisage: http://balisage.net/Call4Participation.html

pre-conference symposium:
Up-Translation and Up-Transformation: Tasks, Challenges, and Solutions
Chair: Evan Owens, Cenveo
https://www.balisage.net/UpTransform/index.html

Increasing the granularity and/or specificity of markup is an important task in many content and information workflows. Markup transformations might involve tasks such as high-level structuring, detailed component structuring, or enhancing information by matching or linking to external vocabularies or data. Enhancing markup presents secondary challenges including lack of structure of the inputs or inconsistency of input data down to the level of spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary. Source data for up-translation may be XML, word processing documents, plain text, scanned & OCRed text, or databases; transformation goals may be content suitable for page makeup, search, or repurposing, in XML, JSON, or any other markup language.

The range of approaches to up-transformation is as varied as the variety of specifics of the input and required outputs. Solutions may combine automated processing with human review or could be 100% software implementations. With the potential for requirements to evolve over time, tools may have to be actively maintained and enhanced. This is the place to discuss goals, challenges, solutions, and workflows for significant XML enhancements, including approaches, tools, and techniques that may potentially be used for a variety of other tasks.

For more information: info@balisage.net or +1 301 315 9631

I’m planning on posting tomorrow one way or the other!

While you wait for that, get to work on your Balisage paper!

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