In this level, Rob Sheldon explains what XML is, and describes the components of an XML document, Elements and Attributes. He explains the basics of tags, entity references, enclosed text, comments and declarations  Read more...

in order to use the modify() method to delete data from typed and untyped XML instances, you must pass an XML DML expression as an argument to the method. That expression must include the delete keyword, along with an XQuery expression that defines the XML component to be deleted. Robert makes it seem simple, as usual.  Read more...

When the average database developer is obliged to manipulate XML, either shredding it into relational format, or creating it from SQL, it is often done 'at arms length'. A shame, since effective use of techniques that go beyond the basics can save much code,  Read more...

You need to provide the necessary keywords and define the XQuery and value expressions in your XML DML expression in order to use the modify() method to update element and attribute values in either typed or untyped XML instances in an XML column. Robert Sheldon explains how.  Read more...

XML Indexes make a huge difference to the speed of XML queries, as Seth Delconte explains; and demonstrates by running queries against half a million XML employee records. The execution time of a query is reduced from two seconds to being too quick to measure, purely by creating the right type of secondary index for the query.  Read more...

The modify method lets you manipulate XML data using XML DML. It can insert, alter or delete data. In this level, Robert shows how to use the method to insert a node into an XML instance.   Read more...

The XML exist() method is used, often in a WHERE clause, to check the existence of an element within an XML document or fragment. The nodes() method lets you shred an XML instance and return the information as relational data.   Read more...

You can extract a subset of data from an XML instance by using the query() method, and you can use the value() method to retrieve individual element and attribute values from an XML instance.  Read more...

You can enforce the validation of an XML data type, variable or column by associating it with an XML Schema Collection. SQL Server validates a typed XML value against the rules defined in the schema collection so that INSERT or UPDATE operations will succeed only if the value being inserted or updated is valid as per the rules defined in the Schema Collection.  Read more...

Robert Sheldon describes SQL Server's XML Data Type, and shows that it is as easy to configure a variable, column, or parameter with the XML data type as configuring one of these objects with any other datatype  Read more...

In this level, Rob Sheldon explains what XML is, and describes the components of an XML document, Elements and Attributes. He explains the basics of tags, entity references, enclosed text, comments and declarations  Read more...

Steve Jones talks about XML and how it will be more and more important for DBAs to understand this in the future.  Read more...

This SSIS package generates XML invoice documents from data stored in SQL Server, then FTPs and/or Emails them to clients.  Read more...

This article demonstrates how to build an SSIS package that generates an XML invoice document from data stored in SQL Server and saves it to an XML file.  Read more...

This SSIS package performs multiple XSL transformations on an XML document, then shreds the transformed document and inserts its data into a SQL Server table.  Read more...

In Part 2 of this series we will shred an XML document and insert its records into a SQL Server table using both the OpenXML and XQuery methods.  Read more...

This article demonstrates how to generate an XML stream from SQL Server using the 'FOR XML PATH' statement, and how to explore that XML stream interactively using an XSL transformation.  Read more...

In general XML documents or fragments are held in strings as text markup. In SQL Server, XML variables and columns are instead tokenised to allow rapid access to the data within. This is fine, but can cause some odd problems, such as ' entitization'. What do you do if you need to preserve the formatting? As usual Rob Sheldon comes to our aid.   Read more...

Every so often, the question comes up on forums of how to pass a list as a parameter to a SQL procedure or function. Phil Factor provides some examples using XML, and tests them against other popular methods.  Read more...

XML data can become a full participant in a SQL Server Database, and can be used in views, functions, check constraints, computed columns and defaults. Views and table-valued functions can be used to provide a tabular view of XML data that can be used in SQL Expressions. Robert Sheldon explains how.  Read more...