XQuery questions you've always wanted to ask (but never dared to)

When using a programming language, sooner or later we all end up trying to solve similar problems. When I enjoyed writing applications in Prolog or C++ (yes, many years ago; and yes, I said enjoy), I wasn't lucky enough to be able to search the Internet for answers, and I had to find solutions to problems that I was sure thousands of other developers had already faced (and solved!).

But Internet or no, developers today are still confronted with questions and problems, especially when dealing with relatively new languages; and this is true of XQuery, of course — How do I return a sequence of elements? How do I do grouping? How do I use variables in expressions? Why does using the default namespace make my query fail? And many more.

Since we don't want you to suffer the same way I did when I was younger, we thought it would be a good idea to share with you typical questions (and answers) that we have experienced in the past few years of work on XQuery. The result is a collection of "tips and tricks" that already covers dozens of topics, and we'll augment the collection over time.

If you have recently hit an XQuery problem about which you have a question, or if you have recently solved a problem that you think might be encountered by other XQuery users, let us know! Who knows: maybe the next addition to our tips and tricks pages to help other XQuery developers will be yours!