The Functional XML Querying Tool

	What is fxgrep?
	fxgrep Versions and Changes
	Downloading fxgrep
	Installation Guide
	fxgrep User Guide
	Online Demo

What is fxgrep?

fxgrep is a powerful XML querying tool. It is written in the functional programming language SML, based on the XML parser fxp.

Given a query, it parses an XML document and finds all matches of the query within that document. The query can be specified either as a pattern or a grammar; while the pattern syntax is more succinct and intuitive, the grammar syntax is more expressive.

fxgrep Versions and Changes

New: fxgrep allows now binary queries. Also, a graphical user interface is available.

The current version of fxgrep is 4.6.5. Changes from the previous versions are described here.

Downloading fxgrep

The source code for fxgrep can be downloaded here. The Copyright note is here.

Installation Guide

In order to install fxgrep, you need an SML compiler. The current version of fxgrep has been tested with version 110.0.7 of SML of New Jersey, but it might also run with other versions. The compiler must have the compilation manager (CM) built in, which is the default when installing SML/NJ. We successfully compiled fxgrep on Linux. For other unices we expect no problems; compiling with the Windows version of SML/NJ has not been tried. If you want to use the graphical user interface of fxgrep you also need to have Java version 1.3 or higher installed on your system.

These are the steps for installing fxgrep on Unix:

Download and install the latest version of fxp. It suffices to install the fxp library, but some of the example programs might also be interesting for you.

Download the latest version of fxgrep.

Unpack the sources, and change to the fxgrep directory, e.g.:

gunzip -c fxgrep-4.6.5.tar.gz | tar xf -
cd fxgrep-4.6.5

Read the file COPYRIGHT;

Edit the Makefile according to your needs. Probably you will only have to change the following:

`FXP_LIBDIR`	is where the fxp library was installed. This should be set to the same path as for the installation of fxp. It must contain the file `fxlib.cm`. Make sure that fxp was compiled with the same version of SML/NJ.
`FXGREP_BINDIR`	is where the executable will be installed;
`FXGREP_LIBDIR`	is where the heap image of by fxgrep will be installed;
`SML_BINDIR`	is the directory where the SML/NJ executables are found. It must contain the `.arch-n-opsys` script from the SML/NJ distribution, so make sure that this is where SML/NJ is physically installed;
`SML_EXEC`	is the name of the SML/NJ executable. This is the program that is called for generating the heap image and at execution of fxgrep. If sml is in your `PATH` at installation time, you don't need the full path here.

Compile fxgrep by typing make;

Install fxgrep by typing make install.

If you experience problems installing fxgrep, send me a mail.

fxgrep's feedback address

Any feedback related to fxgrep is welcome to:

Credits

Authors of fxgrep are Andreas Neumann, Alexandru Berlea and Helmut Seidl.