==String Concatenations==
{{Mark|Introduced with Version 7.0:}} Two vertical bars <code>||</code> (also names ''pipe characters'') can be used to concatenate two strings. This operator is a shortcut for the {{Mono|ft:contains()}} function.
<pre class="brush:xquery">
'Hello' || ' ' || 'Universe'
</pre>
==External Variables==
Default values can now be attached to external variable declarations. This way, an expression can also be evaluated if its external variables have not been bound to a new value.
<pre class="brush:xquery">
declare variable $user external := "admin";
"User:", $user
</pre>