How to extract a list of values from a SQL XML column

Question

Here is my XML:

<Triggers>
  <Trigger>
    <Name>DrugName</Name>
    <Values>
      <Value>Meclofenamate</Value>
      <Value>Meloxicam</Value>
      <Value>Vimovo</Value>
      <Value>Nabumetone</Value>
      <Value>Qmiiz</Value>
      <Value>Tolmetin</Value>    
    </Values>
  </Trigger>
  <Trigger>
    <Name>State</Name>
    <Values>
      <Value>MI</Value>
    </Values>
  </Trigger>
  <Trigger>
    <Name>BenefitType</Name>
    <Values>
      <Value>Pharmacy</Value>
    </Values>
  </Trigger>
  <Trigger>
    <Name>LineOfBusiness</Name>
    <Values>
      <Value>Medicaid</Value>
    </Values>
  </Trigger>
</Triggers>

My goal is to get output that looks like this:

ID      DrugName        State     BenefitType   LineOfBusiness
6500    Meclofenamate   MI        Pharmacy      Medicaid
6501    Meloxicam       MI        Pharmacy      Medicaid
6502    Vimovo          MI        Pharmacy      Medicaid
6503    Nabumetone      MI        Pharmacy      Medicaid
6504    Qmiiz           MI        Pharmacy      Medicaid
6505    Tolmetin        MI        Pharmacy      Medicaid

I can't find any examples on stackoverflow after extensive searches where XML is organized this way, and the examples I have found, tweaked and applied result in my getting a list of all the Values in one column (State values, BenefitType values, etc. mixed in with DrugName values).

The ID column is not part of the XML, but I need to have that in my output.

Here what the table looks like that has the XML column.

Answer 1

You needs the .nodes XML function to break out the Trigger nodes, then again for Values rows.

To get the value of a node instead of it's name, we use text() .

To verify we are grabbing the right Trigger node for each column, we use the [] predicate to check (a bit like a where ).

.value requires a single value, so we use [1] to get the first node.

SELECT
    DrugName = drugs.DrugName.value('text()[1]','nvarchar(100)'),
    State = tr.Trigg.value('Trigger[Name/text()="State"][1]/Values[1]/Value[1]/text()[1]', 'nvarchar(100)'),
    BenefitType = tr.Trigg.value('Trigger[Name/text()="BenefitType"][1]/Values[1]/Value[1]/text()[1]', 'nvarchar(100)'),
    LineOfBusiness = tr.Trigg.value('Trigger[Name/text()="LineOfBusiness"][1]/Values[1]/Value[1]/text()[1]', 'nvarchar(100)')
FROM @xml.nodes('/Triggers') tr(Trigg)
OUTER APPLY tr.Trigg.nodes('Trigger[Name/text()="DrugName"][1]/Values/Value') drugs(DrugName)