Learn how to use eXist, a open source XML database, in this tutorial.
If you are planning to build an online knowledge base, XML might be your best choice for a repository format, because of its ease of development, its platform independence, and the fact that it is in an open and human friendly format. If you use XML then eXist, an open source XML database, may help you to do the job effectively. With eXist you can build collections of XML documents, index them, and retrieve data using the XQuery language.
The software is the brainchild of Wolfgang Meier, who started work on eXist in 2000 after reading some articles on indexing methodologies for XML. The application is written completely in Java (and is therefore suitable for Linux or Windows). It has two parts. The main component is a server application which is used for the import, indexing, and querying of data. This must run on a Web server with a Servlet-engine. Fortunately eXist comes with the Jetty Web server, but it will work just as happily with others, such as Apache Tomcat. There is also a secondary client application used mainly for any additional indexing that may be required.
