Question

I am trying to come up with a UI which will allow users of my application to define rules to be run on a stored XML data. The rules can be something like “If program name is “abc” change it to “xyz””. It should also support complex rules like “For all program under program_group A change name to “abc”” – where program and program_name are my XML elements such that one program_group has many program (I am simplifying the XML ..in actual it has far more elements, attributes etc.) Now this is most naturally represent as XQUERY,
for $i /prgram_group/program_name do
Or by SQL,
update table program set name = …..
However I want to present a more natural way of specifying these rules to a non-IT person. I was thinking of having the UI to look something like, CONDITION – THEN but I soon realize that I am creating an easy-to-use XQUERY or SQL interface. My question is – is there some standard way of doing it? Some existing Java library or GWT or JavaScript library.
Sorry I do realize the question very broad but would appreciate some pointers.
Thanks,
-v-

Answer 1

I would say there is no standard way of doing what you describe (though what you describe is quite broad). There are woefully few resources describing best practices in XQuery application development (as opposed to basic resources on the language itself). Some articles on application development include:

XQuery Wikibook

XRX Wikibook

XRX Beginners Guide

Jim Fuller, Make dashboards with XQuery
Present business data with a Web-based dashboard

I hope these resources help.