Provided by: basex_8.2.3-1_all 
NAME
basex - XML database system and XPath/XQuery processor (command line mode)
SYNOPSIS
basex [-bcdiIoqrRstuvVwxXz] [input]
DESCRIPTION
basex is a fast and powerful, yet light-weight and platform independent XML database
system and XPath/XQuery processor.
OPTIONS
A short description of option can be obtained from
$ basex -h
or by browsing http://docs.basex.org/wiki/Startup_Options#BaseX_Standalone
Note: -q (provide query as string) is currently missing in the official documentation
DATABASE COMMANDS
A list of supported Database commands can be obtained from
$ basex -c help
or by browsing http://docs.basex.org/wiki/Commands
EXAMPLES
• XQuery evaluation (no database, no interaction, script mode):
$ basex 19+23
42
$ basex -q "<answer>{ 23+19 }</answer>"
<answer>42</answer>
• Import an XML file into database, output its content (query its root) and be verbose:
$ basex -Vc "CREATE DB input /usr/share/doc/basex/examples/input.xml; XQUERY /"
Database 'input' created in 136.84 ms.
<html>
<!-- Header -->
<head id="0">
<title>XML</title>
</head>
<!-- Body -->
<body id="1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000CC">
<h1>Databases & XML</h1>
<div align="right">
<b>Assignments</b>
<ul>
<li>Exercise 1</li>
<li>Exercise 2</li>
</ul>
</div>
</body>
<?pi bogus?>
</html>
Query: /
Compiling:
Result: root()
Parsing: 5.08 ms
Compiling: 27.2 ms
Evaluating: 0.87 ms
Printing: 13.7 ms
Total Time: 46.86 ms
Hit(s): 1 Item
Updated: 0 Items
Printed: 358 Bytes
Query executed in 42.52 ms.
• XPath evaluation (with existing database):
$ basex -c "OPEN input; XQUERY //li[1]"
<li>Exercise 1</li>
• Retrieve XML from the web and perform XPath query:
$ basex -q "doc('http://files.basex.org/examples/input.xml')//li"
<li>Exercise 1</li>
<li>Exercise 2</li>
• W3C XQuery Full-Text (make use of full-text index and perform fuzzy query with a typing
error):
$ basex
BaseX 7.1 [Standalone]
Try "help" to get more information.
> SET FTINDEX on
Full-Text Index: ON
> CREATE DB input /usr/share/doc/basex/examples/input.xml
Database 'input' created in 94.42 ms.
> XQUERY //b[text() contains text 'Asisgnment' using fuzzy]
<b>Assignments</b>
Query executed in 8.37 ms.
• Update the database and show result:
> XQUERY delete node //ul
Query executed in 2.79 ms.
> XQUERY replace value of node //b with 'Debian rules'
Query executed in 2.94 ms.
> XQUERY //div
<div align="right">
<b>Debian rules</b>
</div>
Query executed in 1.01 ms.
• Open an input xml file, execute a query and write result into file:
$ basex -i /usr/share/doc/basex/examples/input.xml -q //div -o out.xml
$ cat out.xml
<div align="right">
<b>Assignments</b>
<ul>
<li>Exercise 1</li>
<li>Exercise 2</li>
</ul>
</div>
• Query an already existing database called 'input'. If a file named 'input' exists in
current working directory it takes precedence:
$ basex -i input -q //div
<div align="right">
<b>Assignments</b>
<ul>
<li>Exercise 1</li>
<li>Exercise 2</li>
</ul>
</div>
• Let basex process query input from standard in:
$ echo '19+23' | basex -q-
42
• Execute commands from script file:
$ cat commands.txt
create db debian <debian_db/>
xquery /
list
$ basex -C commands.txt | grep debian
<debian_db/>
debian 1 4639 debian.xml
• Parse non well-formed HTML (needs libtagsoup-java installed):
$ cat bad.html
<html>
<ul>
<li>A
<li>B
</ul>
</html>
$ basex -c 'set parser html; set htmlopt method=html,nons=true; create db htmldb bad.html'
$ basex -q "doc('htmldb')"
<html>
<body>
<ul>
<li>A</li>
<li>B</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
Alternative:
$ basex -q 'declare option db:parser "html"; doc("bad.html")'
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<body>
<ul>
<li>A</li>
<li>B</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
For further documentation on how to configure the HTML Parser refer to
http://docs.basex.org/wiki/Parsers#HTML_Parser
SEE ALSO
basexgui(1), basexserver(1), basexclient(1)
~/.basex
BaseX (standalone and server) properties
~/.basexgui
BaseX additional GUI properties
~/.basexperm
user name, passwords, and permissions
~/.basexevents
contains all existing events
~/BaseXData
Default database directory
~/BaseXData/.logs
Server logs
~/BaseXRepo
Package repository
BaseX Documentation Wiki: http://docs.basex.org
HISTORY
BaseX started as a research project of the Database and Information Systems Group (DBIS)
at the University of Konstanz in 2005 and soon turned into a feature-rich open source XML
database and XPath/XQuery processor.
LICENSE
New (3-clause) BSD License
AUTHOR
BaseX is developed by a bunch of people called 'The BaseX Team' <http://basex.org/about-
us/> led by Christian Gruen <cg@basex.org>.
The man page was written by Alexander Holupirek <alex@holupirek.de> while packaging BaseX
for Debian GNU/Linux.
17 July 2015 basex(1)