Count non-empty nodes in XML in SQL Server

Question

I need to count all b nodes which are not empty (so result should be 2).

<a>
  <b>1</b>
  <b/>
  <b>g</b>
</a>

I'm using code below but this returns count off all nodes (empty included).

select top 1  rc.XmlContent.value('count(//a/b)', 'int') from Table rc

Answer 1

Sorry, this is not the answer! I misread this completely and thought your are looking for the empty nodes. There is an appropriate answer given by GarethD already (same idea, just the other way round).

I don't delete it, because it might help others...

The empty element <b/> (same as <b></b> ) is existing but has no text() .

DECLARE @xml XML = 
N'<a>
  <b>1</b>
  <b/>
  <b></b>
  <b>g</b>
</a>';

select @xml.value('count(/a/b[empty(text())])', 'int')

This returns 2, because there is <b/> and <b></b> .

Just for completeness, you might negate the predicate, which is your needed result actually:

select @xml.value('count(/a/b[not(empty(text()))])', 'int')

Answer 2

If you use //a/b/text() rather than just //a/b , then you get a count of 2

DECLARE @x XML= '<a><b>1</b><b/><b>g</b></a>';
SELECT @x.value('count(//a/b/text())', 'int');

Answer 3

Use this XPath expression

count(/a/b[normalize-space(text())=''])

Incorporated in your code it would look like this:

select top 1  rc.XmlContent.value('count(/a/b[normalize-space(text())=""])', 'int') from Table rc