Wolfgang Meier <meier@ifs.tu-darmstadt.de>
continues development of eXist, an open-source, mySQL-based
system for storage and structured retrieval (via XPath
queries) of arbitrary XML documents. Version 0.2.2 is now available.
Meier writes:
The software does not require any knowledge about
the document's DTD or schema and will index arbitrary
xml documents. All the documents in the repository may
be queried at the same time, regardless of the DTD or
schema they use.
Though eXist is based on a relational database
backend (mysql) at the moment, it is quite fast and
less memory consuming compared to other
implementations. XML is stored in a native form which
allows fast, index- based retrieval.
Meier welcomes collaboration with other developers
interested in the project:
Despite it's alpha status, the software is
already usable for smaller projects. Yet a lot of
features and standards requirements are missing. I
would appreciate any help in making eXist a stable
retrieval software.
He also provides a list of specific
missing features that other developers
might help to implement.
Interested developers will want to read the Technical Overview section on the eXist
homepage, which provides some details about the
application's internal architecture, and perhaps browse
the source code in the project's CVS
repository
A sample search interface to a
demonstration eXist instance is also available.