Hi France,

or does it mean that we use db:open but not local queries on the document obtained

That's probably what it means (if I understood you correctly):

By default, you can access both local files as well as database resources with fn:doc and fn: collection. If you disable WITHDB, you must use db:open for accessing databases.

Did I get you right?

Christian

(example below), or since there is a notion of lock, do you mean db:open as opposed to db:add or db:replace? In short, I lack context to interpret the explanation.

let $current-doc := db:open($lang)/*[@id=x]
(: Query document further without db:opened :)
let $avaliable-sections := $current-doc/descendant::*[name()=''section][@status !='archived']

From the documentation:
WITHDB
Introduced with Version 9.3.
Signature WITHDB
Default true
Summary By default, URIs specified in the fn:doc and fn:collection functions will also be resolved against existing databases. If db:open is consistently used to access database documents, it is recommendable to disable this option:
Access to local and external resources will be faster, as the database lookup will be skipped.
No locks will be created by the two functions (see limitations of database locking for more details).

--
France Baril
Architecte documentaire / Documentation architect
france.baril@architextus.com

Signature	`WITHDB`
Default	`true`
Summary	By default, URIs specified in the fn:doc and fn:collection functions will also be resolved against existing databases. If db:open is consistently used to access database documents, it is recommendable to disable this option: Access to local and external resources will be faster, as the database lookup will be skipped. No locks will be created by the two functions (see limitations of database locking for more details).