Database Server

This step by step tutorial shows you how to run BaseX in client-server mode from a terminal. You can copy & paste the commands to get it running on your machine. After you finished this tutorial, you will be familiar with the basic administration of BaseX. Visit the commands section for a complete list of database commands.

The server/client environment of BaseX offers the following features:

• ACID safe transactions, with multiple readers and single writers
• User management with global and local permissions
• Password authentication via cram-md5
• Logging of server activity

If you run BaseX for the first time, a default admin user is created:

• Username: admin
• Password: admin

The password can be changed using the PASSWORD command or the GUI server dialog.

The BaseX server can be started via the GUI server dialog or, as shown in the Startup Overview.

Startup

See the Startup Overview.

First Operations

To get to know BaseX, we advise to run some of the following operations to see how it works and get your first indentations.

Create a database

In order to create a database you need a xml-document, e.g. factbook.xml.
Save this document to the /basex directory. On the client terminal run:

> create db factbook factbook.xml
factbook - is the name of the database
factbook.xml - is the xml file, which is used to create the database

If everything works, this message will appear, the time might differ.

Database 'factbook' created in 1950.83 ms.

Where is the database stored?

It is stored in the BaseXData directory in your home directory. In my case it's in /Users/JohnDoe/BaseXData/factbook.

Execute a query

To run a query the xquery command is used. After xquery you can insert any valid xquery you like.
This query returns all the countries in the database.

> xquery //country

If you wish, you can also save your query in a file, and run it on basex.

> run /pathToQuery/query.txt

Create another database, switch between databases

Now we will create an another database. You can get the xml document from here [1].

> create db xmark xmark.xml

To set the new database xmark as the context (the active, opened database), use:

> open xmark

Now you can simply type your xquery:

> xquery //people/person/name

If you want to query the factbook database you can access it by explicitly naming it with the doc()-function.

> xquery doc("factbook")//country

If you want to set the factbook database as the context, you can use:

> open factbook

To see which database is opened, use:

> show databases

Close or delete a database

If you want to close the opened database, simple type:

> close

If you want to delete the xmark database, use:

> drop db xmark

Create a collection

What is a collection? With BaseX you can group documents into one logical collection. A collection is a database that contains two or more documents. You can put any type of XML documents into the collection, regardless of their structure.

Now we will add the xmark.xml document to the factbook database, and thus create a collection. The collection will keep the name factbook.

First make sure factbook is opened:

> open factbook

Now add the xmark.xml document:

> add xmark.xml

Delete a document from a collection

Deleting a document from a collection is very easy, just type:

> delete xmark.xml

N.B. The collection has to be the context i.e. the database which contains the document has to be opened.

Delete a collection

Deleting a collection is the same as deleting a database. If you want to delete the collection factbook, type:

> drop factbook

Getting information about the server

To see all databases in BaseX, type:

> list

To see which database is currently opened, type:

> show databases

To see the general information of the opened database, type:

> info

To see the users in BaseX, type:

> show users

Backup and Restrore

To backup your database, type:

> backup factbook

To restore your database, type:

> restore factbook

Where is the backup file stored?

The backup-file is stored in the BaseXData directory, which is in your home directory. The file is named factbook-timestamp.zip (db_name-timestamp.zip). To restore the database the file with the newest timestamp is taken.

See also

Standalone Tutorial, GUI Tutorial, Getting Started, Advanced User Portal