* {{Code|doc("http://web.de")}}: retrieves the addressed URI and returns it as a main-memory document node.
* {{Code|doc("myfile.xml")}}: retrieves the given file from the file system and returns it as a main-memory document node. Note that updates to main-memory nodes are not automatically written back to disk unless the <code>[[Options#WRITEBACK{{Option|WRITEBACK]]</code> }} option is set.
* {{Code|collection("/path/to/docs")}}: returns a main-memory collection with all XML documents found at the addressed file path.