Get a head start with eXist, the open source NoSQL database and application development platform built entirely around XML technologies. With this hands-on guide, you'll learn eXist from the ground up, from using this feature-rich database to work with millions of documents to building complex web applications that take advantage of eXist's many extensions.

If you're familiar with XML--as a student, professor, publisher, or developer--you'll find that eXist is ideal for all kinds of documents. This book shows you how to store, query, and search documents with XQuery and other XML technologies, and how to construct applications on top of the database with tools such as eXide and eXist's built-in development environment.

• Manage both data-oriented and text-oriented markup documents securely
• Build a sample application that analyzes and searches Shakespeare's plays
• Go inside the architecture and learn how eXist processes documents
• Learn how to work with eXist's internal development environment
• Choose among various indexes, including a full-text index based on Apache Lucene
• Dive into eXist's APIs for integrating or interacting with the database
• Extend eXist by building your own Triggers, Scheduled Tasks, and XQuery extension modules