Alan.B,

I think you missing the point.

The question was not about use of XML in real life, but about why we cannot store XML files using good old nvarchar/ntext data type.

Your example does not show any use of XML data processing.

Yes, the outcome is an XML file, but you totally operate with varchar values.

You could read, parse, build XML files in SQL Server 2000, having no XML data in place.

Out of curiosity I put your script into Query Analyzer and after minor syntax tweaks it worked fine in SQL 2000:

IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#testdata') IS NOT NULL

DROP TABLE #testdata

CREATE TABLE #testdata (id int primary key, txt varchar(100) NOT NULL)

INSERT INTO #testdata

SELECT 1,'Paragraph 1...' UNION ALL

SELECT 2,'Paragraph 2...' UNION ALL

SELECT 3,'Paragraph 3...'

GO

DECLARE @pars AS varchar(1000),

@wordDoc varchar(1000)

SET @pars=''

SET @wordDoc ='<!--?-->

<w:wordDocument xmlns:w="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/word/2003/wordml">

<w:body><!--x--></w:body>

</w:wordDocument>'

SELECT @pars=@pars+d+CHAR(13)

FROM (

SELECT '<w:p><w:r><w:t>'+CAST(id AS char(1))+': '+txt+'</w:t></w:r></w:p>'+CHAR(13)

FROM #testdata) data(d)

SELECT REPLACE(REPLACE( @wordDoc,'<!--?-->',

'<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>'+CHAR(13)+

'<?mso-application progid="Word.Document"?>'),

'<!--x-->',CHAR(13)+@pars)

You see? You do not need XML data type for this at all.