eXide - a web-based XQuery IDE

eXide is a web-based XQuery IDE built around CodeMirror 6. It is tightly integrated with the eXist-db native XML database.

Features

• XQuery function and variable completion (press Ctrl-Space or Opt-Space)
• Outline view showing all functions and variables reachable from the current file
• Powerful navigation (press F3 on a function call to see its declaration)
• Templates and snippets
• Background syntax checks for XQuery and XML
• Database manager
• Support for EXPath application packages: scaffolding, deployment...
• And more ...

eXide consists of two parts:

1. a javascript library for the client-side application
2. a set of XQuery scripts which are called via AJAX

Note concerning eXide 3.0.0

eXide 3.0.0 removes the app generation feature as it was generating outdated code with potential security risks. We recommend the much better yeoman-based generator-exist for eXist-db.

Documentation

• short documentation of all features
• screencast demonstrating most features

Dependencies

Building eXide requires git and node.js (version 14+).

Running tests requires npm and node.js.

Getting eXide

eXide is included in eXist-db distributions and can be opened directly at http://localhost:8080/exist/apps/eXide. It can also be opened via the Dashboard or the "Open eXide" entry in eXist-db's task or menu bar.

You can upgrade to new releases of eXide via the Dashboard app's Package Manager.

You can also build eXide from source and install it.

Building

To build eXide from scratch:

git clone git://github.com/eXist-db/eXide.git
cd eXide

Next, call npm install once:

npm install

And each time you want to build the application:

npm run build

You should now find a .xar file in the build/ directory: build/eXide-*.*.*.xar. The .xar file is an EXPath Application package containing eXide. Install this into any compatible eXist-db instance using the Dashboard's Package Manager.

Testing

We welcome contributions to help us improve both unit and integration tests. Current tests can be found in the cypress/integration folder.

eXide's GitHub repository is configured to run tests automatically on each PR via GitHub Actions.

To run tests locally, build and install eXide on localhost, and start the tests:

# clone the repo
git clone git://github.com/eXist-db/eXide.git
cd eXide

# build exide
npm install
# at this point if you are planning to build another branch change it now
npm run build
#start exist docker container
docker create  --name exist-ci -p 8080:8080 existdb/existdb:latest

#deploy exide
docker cp ./build/*.xar exist-ci:exist/autodeploy

#start the docker container
docker start exist-ci && sleep 30

# by this time you should be able to visit http://localhost:8080 and get exist-db home page
# run cypress tests
npm run cypress # this runs the tests in console 
# or use to view the tests in a GUI environment
#npm run cypress open 

If successful, the test runner should report, "All specs passed!"

Commit message conventions

eXide uses semantic-release to automate versioning and releases from develop, so every commit message must follow Conventional Commits: type(scope): subject, e.g. fix(query): surface errors returned in a 200 body or feat(db): support renaming collections. The type decides what happens on release — fix: bumps a patch version, feat: a minor version, and a BREAKING CHANGE: footer (or ! after the type/scope) bumps a major version; other types (chore:, ci:, docs:, refactor:, test:, ...) don't trigger a release at all.

This is enforced, not just a suggestion: a commitlint GitHub Action rejects any PR containing a non-conforming commit message, and once you run npm install locally, a husky commit-msg hook checks it before the commit is even made.

Publishing

Releases are fully automated from develop via semantic-release — no manual tagging or uploads. On every push to develop that passes CI, semantic-release inspects the commits since the last release, and if any are release-worthy (see above):

1. Bumps the version, builds the .xar, and inserts a changelog entry into repo.xml's <changelog> (visible in eXist-db's Package Manager).
2. Tags the release and pushes the version bump back to develop.
3. Publishes a GitHub Release with the .xar attached.
4. Mirrors that .xar to the public repo, so it's immediately installable via the Package Manager.

If you need help with a release of eXide, post a note in the eXist-db Community Slack.