Examples

declaring variables of any type:

Example: Set the variable $myfile to the filename "myfile-ces.sgml".

global $myfile =
    "http://aune.lpl.univ-aix.fr/projects/SgmlQL/examples/myfile-ces.sgml";

extracting sub-elements with a given generic identifier

Example: Find the (first, highest-level) DATE element in file $myfile.

first DATE within file $myfile;

<DATE>
16 July 1991
</DATE>

Example: Find all the DATE elements (within HEAD, DIV, and P, etc.) in file $myfile.

top DATE within file $myfile;

...(full result)...

performing various tests and computations on objects

Example: Does a name matching "Jean" exist in file $myfile ?

exists $person in
  (top NAME within file $myfile)
: 
  text($person) match "Jean";

TRUE

Example: Print the division head and the paragraph count for every division of file $myfile as a plain text.

select
    "-------------\n" .
    text(first HEAD within $div) .
    "\n" .
    count(top P within $div) .
    " Paragraph(s)\n\n"
from
    $div in
        every
            DIV
        within
            file $myfile
        where
            not(empty(first HEAD within $div));

...(full result)...

constructing new elements and SGML documents

Example: Find all NAME elements in file $myfile and create a new document NAMES containing these elements; put the title of file $myfile in an attribute "HREF" on NAMES.

document
  docdtd: "address.dtd"
  body:
    element NAMES
      attr:
        HREF = $myfile
      content:
        top NAME within file $myfile;

...(full result)...