Hi Jeff,

in this case you will have to use CDATA (Character Data) elements in the construction of the XML.

😎

Here is the function with the necessary modification to handle any type of input.

CREATE FUNCTION dbo.SplitStrings_XML

(

@List NVARCHAR(MAX),

@Delimiter NVARCHAR(255)

)

RETURNS TABLE WITH SCHEMABINDING AS

RETURN (

SELECT Item = y.i.value('(./text())[1]', 'nvarchar(4000)')

FROM (SELECT x = CONVERT(XML,

'<i><![CDATA['

+ REPLACE(@List, @Delimiter, ']]></i><i><![CDATA[')

+ ']]></i>'

).query('.')

) AS a CROSS APPLY x.nodes('i') AS y(i)

)

;

Testing it

SELECT *

FROM dbo.SplitStrings_XML('"T-SQL",&,<XML>', N',')

;

Output

Item

--------

"T-SQL"

&

<XML>