path: root/doc/src/sgml/xml2.sgml

<!-- doc/src/sgml/xml2.sgml -->

<sect1 id="xml2" xreflabel="xml2">
 <title>xml2</title>

 <indexterm zone="xml2">
  <primary>xml2</primary>
 </indexterm>

 <para>
  The <filename>xml2</> module provides XPath querying and
  XSLT functionality.
 </para>

 <sect2>
  <title>Deprecation Notice</title>

  <para>
   From <productname>PostgreSQL</> 8.3 on, there is XML-related
   functionality based on the SQL/XML standard in the core server.
   That functionality covers XML syntax checking and XPath queries,
   which is what this module does, and more, but the API is
   not at all compatible.  It is planned that this module will be
   removed in a future version of PostgreSQL in favor of the newer standard API, so
   you are encouraged to try converting your applications.  If you
   find that some of the functionality of this module is not
   available in an adequate form with the newer API, please explain
   your issue to <email>pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org</email> so that the deficiency
   can be addressed.
  </para>
 </sect2>

 <sect2>
  <title>Description of Functions</title>

  <para>
   <xref linkend="xml2-functions-table"> shows the functions provided by this module.
   These functions provide straightforward XML parsing and XPath queries.
   All arguments are of type <type>text</>, so for brevity that is not shown.
  </para>

  <table id="xml2-functions-table">
   <title>Functions</title>
   <tgroup cols="3">
   <thead>
     <row>
      <entry>Function</entry>
      <entry>Returns</entry>
      <entry>Description</entry>
     </row>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
     <row>
      <entry>
       <function>
        xml_is_well_formed(document)
       </function>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <type>bool</type>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <para>
        This parses the document text in its parameter and returns true if the
        document is well-formed XML.  (Note: before PostgreSQL 8.2, this
        function was called <function>xml_valid()</>.  That is the wrong name
        since validity and well-formedness have different meanings in XML.
        The old name is still available, but is deprecated.)
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry>
        <function>
         xpath_string(document, query)
        </function>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <type>text</type>
      </entry>
      <entry morerows="2">
       <para>
        These functions evaluate the XPath query on the supplied document, and
        cast the result to the specified type.
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry>
       <function>
        xpath_number(document, query)
       </function>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <type>float4</type>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry>
       <function>
        xpath_bool(document, query)
       </function>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <type>bool</type>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry>
        <function>
         xpath_nodeset(document, query, toptag, itemtag)
        </function>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <type>text</type>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <para>
       This evaluates query on document and wraps the result in XML tags. If
       the result is multivalued, the output will look like:
<synopsis>
&lt;toptag&gt;
&lt;itemtag&gt;Value 1 which could be an XML fragment&lt;/itemtag&gt;
&lt;itemtag&gt;Value 2....&lt;/itemtag&gt;
&lt;/toptag&gt;
</synopsis>
        If either <literal>toptag</> or <literal>itemtag</> is an empty string, the relevant tag is omitted.
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry>
        <function>
         xpath_nodeset(document, query)
        </function>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <type>text</type>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <para>
        Like <function>xpath_nodeset(document, query, toptag, itemtag)</> but result omits both tags.
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry>
        <function>
         xpath_nodeset(document, query, itemtag)
        </function>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <type>text</type>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <para>
        Like <function>xpath_nodeset(document, query, toptag, itemtag)</> but result omits toptag.
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry>
        <function>
         xpath_list(document, query, separator)
        </function>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <type>text</type>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <para>
        This function returns multiple values separated by the specified
        separator, for example <literal>Value 1,Value 2,Value 3</> if
        separator is <literal>,</>.
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry>
        <function>
         xpath_list(document, query)
        </function>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       <type>text</type>
      </entry>
      <entry>
       This is a wrapper for the above function that uses <literal>,</>
       as the separator.
      </entry>
     </row>
    </tbody>
   </tgroup>
  </table>
 </sect2>

 <sect2>
  <title><literal>xpath_table</literal></title>

  <indexterm>
   <primary>xpath_table</primary>
  </indexterm>

<synopsis>
xpath_table(text key, text document, text relation, text xpaths, text criteria) returns setof record
</synopsis>

  <para>
   <function>xpath_table</> is a table function that evaluates a set of XPath
   queries on each of a set of documents and returns the results as a
   table. The primary key field from the original document table is returned
   as the first column of the result so that the result set
   can readily be used in joins.  The parameters are described in
   <xref linkend="xml2-xpath-table-parameters">.
  </para>

  <table id="xml2-xpath-table-parameters">
   <title><function>xpath_table</function> Parameters</title>
   <tgroup cols="2">
     <thead>
     <row>
      <entry>Parameter</entry>
      <entry>Description</entry>
     </row>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
     <row>
      <entry><parameter>key</parameter></entry>
      <entry>
       <para>
        the name of the <quote>key</> field &mdash; this is just a field to be used as
        the first column of the output table, i.e., it identifies the record from
        which each output row came (see note below about multiple values)
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry><parameter>document</parameter></entry>
      <entry>
       <para>
        the name of the field containing the XML document
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry><parameter>relation</parameter></entry>
      <entry>
       <para>
        the name of the table or view containing the documents
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry><parameter>xpaths</parameter></entry>
      <entry>
       <para>
        one or more XPath expressions, separated by <literal>|</literal>
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry><parameter>criteria</parameter></entry>
      <entry>
       <para>
        the contents of the WHERE clause. This cannot be omitted, so use
        <literal>true</literal> or <literal>1=1</literal> if you want to
        process all the rows in the relation
       </para>
      </entry>
     </row>
    </tbody>
   </tgroup>
  </table>

  <para>
   These parameters (except the XPath strings) are just substituted
   into a plain SQL SELECT statement, so you have some flexibility &mdash; the
   statement is
  </para>

  <para>
   <literal>
    SELECT &lt;key&gt;, &lt;document&gt; FROM &lt;relation&gt; WHERE &lt;criteria&gt;
   </literal>
  </para>

  <para>
   so those parameters can be <emphasis>anything</> valid in those particular
   locations. The result from this SELECT needs to return exactly two
   columns (which it will unless you try to list multiple fields for key
   or document). Beware that this simplistic approach requires that you
   validate any user-supplied values to avoid SQL injection attacks.
  </para>

  <para>
   The function has to be used in a <literal>FROM</> expression, with an
   <literal>AS</> clause to specify the output columns; for example
<programlisting>
SELECT * FROM
xpath_table('article_id',
            'article_xml',
            'articles',
            '/article/author|/article/pages|/article/title',
            'date_entered > ''2003-01-01'' ')
AS t(article_id integer, author text, page_count integer, title text);
</programlisting>
   The <literal>AS</> clause defines the names and types of the columns in the
   output table.  The first is the <quote>key</> field and the rest correspond
   to the XPath queries.
   If there are more XPath queries than result columns,
   the extra queries will be ignored. If there are more result columns
   than XPath queries, the extra columns will be NULL.
  </para>

  <para>
   Notice that this example defines the <structname>page_count</> result
   column as an integer.  The function deals internally with string
   representations, so when you say you want an integer in the output, it will
   take the string representation of the XPath result and use PostgreSQL input
   functions to transform it into an integer (or whatever type the <type>AS</>
   clause requests). An error will result if it can't do this &mdash; for
   example if the result is empty &mdash; so you may wish to just stick to
   <type>text</> as the column type if you think your data has any problems.
  </para>

  <para>
   The calling <command>SELECT</> statement doesn't necessarily have be
   be just <literal>SELECT *</> &mdash; it can reference the output
   columns by name or join them to other tables. The function produces a
   virtual table with which you can perform any operation you wish (e.g.
   aggregation, joining, sorting etc). So we could also have:
<programlisting>
SELECT t.title, p.fullname, p.email
FROM xpath_table('article_id', 'article_xml', 'articles',
                 '/article/title|/article/author/@id',
                 'xpath_string(article_xml,''/article/@date'') > ''2003-03-20'' ')
       AS t(article_id integer, title text, author_id integer),
     tblPeopleInfo AS p
WHERE t.author_id = p.person_id;
</programlisting>
   as a more complicated example. Of course, you could wrap all
   of this in a view for convenience.
  </para>

  <sect3>
   <title>Multivalued Results</title>

   <para>
    The <function>xpath_table</> function assumes that the results of each XPath query
    might be multivalued, so the number of rows returned by the function
    may not be the same as the number of input documents. The first row
    returned contains the first result from each query, the second row the
    second result from each query. If one of the queries has fewer values
    than the others, null values will be returned instead.
   </para>

   <para>
    In some cases, a user will know that a given XPath query will return
    only a single result (perhaps a unique document identifier) &mdash; if used
    alongside an XPath query returning multiple results, the single-valued
    result will appear only on the first row of the result. The solution
    to this is to use the key field as part of a join against a simpler
    XPath query. As an example:

<programlisting>
CREATE TABLE test (
    id int PRIMARY KEY,
    xml text
);

INSERT INTO test VALUES (1, '&lt;doc num="C1"&gt;
&lt;line num="L1"&gt;&lt;a&gt;1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;2&lt;/b&gt;&lt;c&gt;3&lt;/c&gt;&lt;/line&gt;
&lt;line num="L2"&gt;&lt;a&gt;11&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;22&lt;/b&gt;&lt;c&gt;33&lt;/c&gt;&lt;/line&gt;
&lt;/doc&gt;');

INSERT INTO test VALUES (2, '&lt;doc num="C2"&gt;
&lt;line num="L1"&gt;&lt;a&gt;111&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;222&lt;/b&gt;&lt;c&gt;333&lt;/c&gt;&lt;/line&gt;
&lt;line num="L2"&gt;&lt;a&gt;111&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;222&lt;/b&gt;&lt;c&gt;333&lt;/c&gt;&lt;/line&gt;
&lt;/doc&gt;');

SELECT * FROM
  xpath_table('id','xml','test',
              '/doc/@num|/doc/line/@num|/doc/line/a|/doc/line/b|/doc/line/c',
              'true')
  AS t(id int, doc_num varchar(10), line_num varchar(10), val1 int, val2 int, val3 int)
WHERE id = 1 ORDER BY doc_num, line_num

 id | doc_num | line_num | val1 | val2 | val3
----+---------+----------+------+------+------
  1 | C1      | L1       |    1 |    2 |    3
  1 |         | L2       |   11 |   22 |   33
</programlisting>
   </para>

   <para>
    To get <literal>doc_num</> on every line, the solution is to use two invocations
    of <function>xpath_table</> and join the results:

<programlisting>
SELECT t.*,i.doc_num FROM
  xpath_table('id', 'xml', 'test',
              '/doc/line/@num|/doc/line/a|/doc/line/b|/doc/line/c',
              'true')
    AS t(id int, line_num varchar(10), val1 int, val2 int, val3 int),
  xpath_table('id', 'xml', 'test', '/doc/@num', 'true')
    AS i(id int, doc_num varchar(10))
WHERE i.id=t.id AND i.id=1
ORDER BY doc_num, line_num;

 id | line_num | val1 | val2 | val3 | doc_num
----+----------+------+------+------+---------
  1 | L1       |    1 |    2 |    3 | C1
  1 | L2       |   11 |   22 |   33 | C1
(2 rows)
</programlisting>
   </para>
  </sect3>
 </sect2>

 <sect2>
  <title>XSLT Functions</title>

  <para>
   The following functions are available if libxslt is installed:
  </para>

  <sect3>
   <title><literal>xslt_process</literal></title>

  <indexterm>
   <primary>xslt_process</primary>
  </indexterm>

<synopsis>
xslt_process(text document, text stylesheet, text paramlist) returns text
</synopsis>

   <para>
    This function applies the XSL stylesheet to the document and returns
    the transformed result. The <literal>paramlist</> is a list of parameter
    assignments to be used in the transformation, specified in the form
    <literal>a=1,b=2</>. Note that the
    parameter parsing is very simple-minded: parameter values cannot
    contain commas!
   </para>

   <para>
    There is also a two-parameter version of <function>xslt_process</> which
    does not pass any parameters to the transformation.
   </para>
  </sect3>
 </sect2>

 <sect2>
  <title>Author</title>

  <para>
   John Gray <email>jgray@azuli.co.uk</email>
  </para>

  <para>
   Development of this module was sponsored by Torchbox Ltd. (www.torchbox.com).
   It has the same BSD licence as PostgreSQL.
  </para>
 </sect2>

</sect1>