  XML is becoming the most relevant new standard for data representation and
exchange on the WWW. Novel languages for extracting and restructuring the XML
content have been proposed, some in the tradition of database query languages
(i.e. SQL, OQL), others more closely inspired by XML. No standard for XML query
language has yet been decided, but the discussion is ongoing within the World
Wide Web Consortium and within many academic institutions and Internet-related
major companies. We present a comparison of five, representative query
languages for XML, highlighting their common features and differences.
