Introduction
In the previous sessions of XML Workshop, we have seen several
XML processing examples. Some of the examples demonstrated how
to generate XML output in a specific structure. Other few
examples demonstrated how to read values from XML columns and
XML variables.
While working with XML data, it may be common that you will come
across situations where you need to iterate over an XML document.
Most of the times we can avoid a LOOP by applying some sort of
set-based logic and write a single query that does a batch
processing. However, there may be cases when we cannot do a batch
process. Assume that you need to run a loop over all the nodes of
an XML document and execute a stored procedure for each node in
the XML document.
In this session, I will show one of the several ways to iterate
over an XML document. As I used to mention, there are always more
than one way to do a certain programming task. The approach
presented here is one of the several possible options that can be
used to achieve the given results.
The following pseudo code shows the basic flow of the iteration.
"i" = 1
"cnt" = total number of nodes
while "i" <= "cnt" begin
take the node at position "i"
process the node
increment "i"
end
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Let us see how to translate the above pseudo code to TSQL code.
Sample XML Document
Let us work use the following XML document as the sample data for
this session. The below XML document has 5 "Employee" elements.
Let us write the code that iterates over the "Employee" elements
and prints the "Name" of each employee.
<Employees>
<Employee ID="101">
<Name>Jacob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="354">
<Name>Steve</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="456">
<Name>Bob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="478">
<Name>Joe</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="981">
<Name>Louis</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
</Employees>
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Counting Nodes
Before we run the loop, we need to know how many "Employee"
elements exist in the XML document. Once we know the total count
of "Employee" nodes, we can run a loop from 1 to @count and at
each iteration we can process a single XML node.
To count the number of nodes, let us use the XQuery
function "count()". Here is the code that returns the count of
nodes.
DECLARE @x XML
SET @x =
'<Employees>
<Employee ID="101">
<Name>Jacob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="354">
<Name>Steve</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="456">
<Name>Bob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="478">
<Name>Joe</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="981">
<Name>Louis</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
</Employees>'
SELECT
@x.query('<count>
{ count(/Employees/Employee) }
</count>') AS Count
/*
output:
Count
-----------------
<count>5</count>
*/
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We need to retrieve the value "5" from the XQuery result. The
following query retrieves the value "5" form the XQuery result.
DECLARE @x XML
SET @x =
'<Employees>
<Employee ID="101">
<Name>Jacob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="354">
<Name>Steve</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="456">
<Name>Bob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="478">
<Name>Joe</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="981">
<Name>Louis</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
</Employees>'
SELECT
@x.query('<count>
{count(/Employees/Employee)}
</count>'
).value('count[1]','int') AS cnt
/*
output:
cnt
-----------
5
*/
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Accessing the XML node at a given position
The next task is to see how to access a NODE at a given
position. The XQuery function "position()" can be used
to access the XML node at a given position.
The following code shows an example of accessing the 3rd
"Employee" node using "position()" method.
DECLARE @x XML
SET @x =
'<Employees>
<Employee ID="101">
<Name>Jacob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="354">
<Name>Steve</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="456">
<Name>Bob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="478">
<Name>Joe</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="981">
<Name>Louis</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
</Employees>'
SELECT
x.value('Name[1]', 'VARCHAR(20)') AS Name
FROM @x.nodes('/Employees/Employee[position()=3]') e(x)
/*
output:
Name
--------------------
Bob
*/
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Using a variable to specify the position
We just saw how to access an XML node at a given position.
Now let us see how to access a node at the position specified
by a variable.
The following example shows how to use a variable in the XPath
expression.
DECLARE @x XML
SET @x =
'<Employees>
<Employee ID="101">
<Name>Jacob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="354">
<Name>Steve</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="456">
<Name>Bob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="478">
<Name>Joe</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="981">
<Name>Louis</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
</Employees>'
DECLARE @i TINYINT
SELECT @i = 3
SELECT
x.value('Name[1]', 'VARCHAR(20)') AS Name
FROM
@x.nodes('/Employees/Employee[position()=sql:variable("@i")]') e(x)
/*
output:
Name
--------------------
Bob
*/
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Writing the LOOP
It is time to look at the final source code. Here is the loop
which runs over all the "Employee" elements and prints the
"Name" of each employee.
DECLARE @x XML
SET @x =
'<Employees>
<Employee ID="101">
<Name>Jacob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="354">
<Name>Steve</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="456">
<Name>Bob</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="478">
<Name>Joe</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
<Employee ID="981">
<Name>Louis</Name>
<Department>IT</Department>
</Employee>
</Employees>'
-- Total count of <Employee> Nodes
DECLARE @max INT, @i INT
SELECT
@max = @x.query('<e>
{ count(/Employees/Employee) }
</e>').value('e[1]','int')
-- Set counter variable to 1
SET @i = 1
-- variable to store employee name
DECLARE @EmpName VARCHAR(10)
-- loop starts
WHILE @i <= @max BEGIN
-- select "Name" to the variable
SELECT
@EmpName = x.value('Name[1]', 'VARCHAR(20)')
FROM
@x.nodes('/Employees/Employee[position()=sql:variable("@i")]')
e(x)
-- print the name
PRINT @EmpName
-- increment counter
SET @i = @i + 1
END
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Conclusions
We have learned how to use XQuery functions "count()" and
"position()". Then we have seen how to access an XML node
at the position specified by a variable. Finally, we have
seen a loop which runs over all the nodes of an XML document
and prints the name of an element.
