Motivation

You want to insert or update attributes in a document.

(Note: The XQuery Update syntax below is specific to eXist and is not necessarily identical to that in the W3C XQuery Update spec. Full documentation of eXist's XQuery Update syntax can be found at http://exist-db.org/exist/apps/doc/update_ext.xml)

Example Input Document

<root>
    <message>Hello World</message>
</root>

Example of Attribute Insert

To insert a new attribute with the name of "foo" and a value of "bar" you an use the following example:

xquery version "1.0";
let $doc := doc('/db/test.xml')/root
let $update := update insert attribute foo {'bar'} into $doc
return 
    $doc

This will add a foo="bar" attribute to the root element

Result Document

<root foo="bar">
    <message>Hello World</message>
</root>

Example of Attribute Update

let $doc := doc('/db/test/update-attribute/root.xml')/root

return update value $doc/@foo with 'new-value'

Result Document

<root foo="new-value">
    <message>Hello World</message>
</root>