After several months of development, Elsevier, Inc. announced the initial release of xqDoc, an open source XQuery documentation tool. See details at http://www.xqdoc.org XQuery, under development by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (http://www.w3.org/XML/Query), is a new query/programming language based on XML and used in conjunction with XML databases such as MarkLogic (http://www.marklogic.com), a commercial database, and eXist (http://exist.sourceforge.net) on the open source side. As XQuery applications became more complex, it became evident that a tool was needed to assist with documenting the ever growing and equally complex XQuery modules. xqDoc provides a simple vendor neutral solution for documenting XQuery library and main modules, as well as tools to generate a user friendly presentation of this documentation and cross referencing information. This is being accomplished through (4) specific components: 1. xqDoc proposes a new commenting convention that extends the currently defined XQuery comment style. This convention is modeled after Java's Javadoc commenting style, and provides a simple, uniform way to document XQuery source code. 2. xqDoc defines a standard xqDoc XML schema. This schema provides a neutral format for storing information for user-defined XQuery modules as well as 3rd party proprietary functions that may be implemented in other programming languages. 3. xqDoc provides a vendor neutral Java based conversion package that parses an XQuery library or main module and generates an xqDoc XML document modelled after the xqDoc XML schema. Support for specific XML database platforms is provided by writing vendor specific drivers to store the generated xqDoc XML into the vendor's database. 4. xqDoc provides a vendor neutral presentation component, consisting of XQuery main modules and a library module, that can process the xqDoc XML document(s) stored in a XML database and generate an extensively hyperlinked XHTML navigation interface. This news item is picked up from Elsevier and xqDoc website. Madhuresh Singhal Aurigene Discovery Technologies Limited, Electronic City, phase II, Hosur Road, Bangalore 560100 Phone 28521314-16 Ext.- 212 Mobile 98861 82822 E-mail: madhureshsinghal@yahoo.com http://nettalk2.tripod.com/