The Figaro XML Database is an embedded database specifically designed for the storage and retrieval of XML-formatted documents using the Microsoft .NET Framework. Built on the award-winning Berkeley DB, Figaro supports efficient queries against millions of XML documents using XQuery 1.0. XQuery is a query language designed for the examination and retrieval of portions of XML documents.

This section introduces the Berkeley DB for XML (BDB XML) layer and provides a walkthrough of some of its features using the dbxml command-line shell. It is a high-level overview of the system that provides a basic understanding of what the system does and how it might be useful to your project. This document is not a detailed tutorial or reference guide, so we will omit technical detail, emphasizing what things can be done with BDB XML To get the most out of this document you should be familiar with the basics of XML and XQuery. This guide is written so that you can follow along using the BDB XML shell to run the examples and become familiar BDB XML's capabilities.