XQuery topic tools - concept, user interface, development framework

This paper defines the concept of topic tools, which are command line tools providing a single point of access to a range of functionality. Topic tools conform to a generic model of invocation syntax and basic tool behaviour, concerning user assistence, error diagnostics and invocation reuse. The paper proposes a comprehensive model of the user-perspective syntax and behaviour and it introduces a simple development framework making the creation of XQuery topic tools simple and fast. The support offered by the framework includes code generation and the use of a message interface which cleanly isolates the application code from user input and gives it access to validated and augmented information, rather than the raw data of user input. Key properties of framework-based topic tools are early availability, extensibility, user convenience, behavioural consistency and reliability based on very thorough and fully automated input validation.