WebPath: Querying the web as XML

WebPath is an experimental XPath-2.0-based query language designed to consider rich web queries as effectively as standard XPath handles same-document queries. By mapping existing web content to well-formed XML and providing seamless means to traverse links, the language makes use of XML tools where they otherwise might not apply.

The talk discusses why XPath 2.0 makes a better base for this kind of experimentation compared to alternatives, and how W3C standardized features almost, but not quite, were sufficient for the task.

The talk discusses specific language design considerations as well as a implementation experience specific to a Python implementation.