I work since a few months with XML and I found very useful this article because I didn´t know all the advantages mencioned in the article.

Thanks and sorry for my english (I'm from Argentina).

Nice.  the difference in time is more pronounced at 40k rows than 20k, although if you keep going up the time to create the delimited string becomes too unbearable to test.

Question: assuming that the delimited string is coming from the outside (so you don't have to worry about the time to create it), will there be a point at which the performance of the REPLACE() function becomes unbearable also?

Small thing: You probably need to change your name for the XML proc in the code sample and also your test code, which does this:

print     @CSV
exec usp_LoopVersion       @CSV
exec usp_LoopVersion   @CSV

Thanks,

>L<

XML is a good solution for some sticky problems.

For example, I'm programming an application that stores information for physical exams that a medical practice performs. The problem is that the exam is rather dynamic, in that it frequently changes (doctors are a contentious breed), and updating the database was becoming a real challenge because of the necessity of keeping old data and new data in the same tables.

The solution was to store the raw exam data in an XML field, but keep basic patient information (ExamID, DateOfService, ExamType, etc) in regular SQL Server fields. That way I could retrieve the XML field, then query and update it using XML classes directly from my windows application. The good news is that if the XML node isn't present, the XML query simply ignores that part of the query without breaking the code. In other words, the structure of the exam can change without blowing up the application or requiring major changes in my existing functions in the data layer. Really nice.

Lee...

SQL Server MVP Peter DeBetta has recently wrote on the same problem:

http://sqlblog.com/blogs/peter_debetta/archive/2007/02/12/multiple-valued-parameters.aspx

I think his conclusions are different.

Well it was great article for the developers who want to know about the advantages of XML in SQL SERVER 2005.

Regards

Mian Rehmat

Local Govt, UK.