Steve Jones - Editor (8/4/2009)
Didn't test it, and perhaps there are none. In any case, I think it's been a nice debate/discussion of the technique.
Hey Steve!
CTRL+C, CTRL+V, F5 :laugh:
(The test results from a run on my machine are also embedded in the comments).
Seriously though, XML is cool an' all - and I have been known to dabble some with XQuery, XPath and the rest, but it is easy to get carried away with it and apply XML to everything.
@G2: Good point. Sparse columns have some advantages in 2K8 that make them well worth a look too. The column_set column that gives you formatted XML based on just the columns with values in is very cool.
@jeff: Thanks so much - have you noticed how many of my scripts have at least a passing resemblance to some you have posted in the past? Not entirely co-incidental 😉
Paul White
SQLPerformance.com
SQLkiwi blog
@SQL_Kiwi