XOR - XML Oriented Retrieval Language

The wide acceptance and rapidly growing use of XML as a standard storage and retrieval data format blurs the historical divide that exists between Information Retrieval and Database Retrieval. On the structured database retrieval side it is now possible to support highly structured access to documents using XML specific tools such as XPath, XQuery, XQL and more. On the information retrieval side it is possible to support access to the XML documents using XML specific retrieval query languages such as NEXI. None of the above are intended for end-users, but rather as enabling back-end technologies. In this paper we introduce XOR a new XML Oriented Retrieval language that is designed to facilitate query specification with a strong IR flavour. XOR is backwards compatible with NEXI, but significantly extends its functionality overcoming many of its restrictions and limitations. While XOR itself is not an end-user tool, it is designed with the explicit goal of supporting IR, and more specifically, user oriented interfaces such as Natural Language Queries (NLQ) or interactive user interfaces. XOR provides the missing functionality that none of the existing XML retrieval tools support, and which advanced IR requires.