How to select count from XML clob column?

Question

I am trying to select the count of tags in the XML(CLOB) column.

I tried with

select regexp_count(diagram, 'userTask id=', 1, 'c') as "User Tasks",
       regexp_count(diagram, 'task id=', 1, 'c') as "Task"
from process_table

It works but, I need to get output faster than using regexp_count.

I tried with:

select count(xt.task),
count(xt.userTask)
from process_table process
cross join xmltable(
            xmlnamespaces(default 'http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL'),
            '//definitions/process' passing xmltype(process.diagram) 
            columns
            task varchar2(20) path 'task',
            userTask varchar2(60) path 'userTask'
            ) xt

But, I am getting an error ORA-19279: XPTY0004 - XQuery dynamic type mismatch: expected singleton sequence - got multi-item sequence

Answer 1

I think it would be better to store the XML as XMLTYPE rather than CLOB . Then you can create a virtual column and you can even create indexes on it. Something like this:

CREATE TABLE PROCESS_TABLE (
    DIAGRAM XMLTYPE,
    TASK_COUNT      INTEGER GENERATED ALWAYS AS (
        TO_NUMBER(CAST(XMLQUERY('count(/definitions/process/task)' PASSING BY VALUE "DIAGRAM" RETURNING CONTENT) AS VARCHAR2(100)))
    ) VIRTUAL,
    USER_TASK_COUNT INTEGER  GENERATED ALWAYS AS (
        TO_NUMBER(CAST(XMLQUERY('count(/definitions/process/userTask)' PASSING BY VALUE "DIAGRAM" RETURNING CONTENT) AS VARCHAR2(100)))
    ) VIRTUAL
)
XMLTYPE DIAGRAM STORE AS SECUREFILE BINARY XML; 

CREATE INDEX IND_TASK_COUNT ON process_table (TASK_COUNT);

Answer 2

There are a few ways to do this. One is to use XMLTable to look for either child node, get the node names, and count how many times each appears:

select
  count(case when xt.name = 'userTask' then name end) as userTasks,
  count(case when xt.name = 'task' then name end) as tasks
from process_table process
cross join xmltable(
  xmlnamespaces(default 'http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL'),
  '//definitions/process/(userTask|task)' passing xmltype(process.diagram) 
  columns
    name varchar2(20) path 'name(.)'
) xt

Or you could use FLWOR expressions to get the count for both child node types at once:

select userTasks, tasks
from process_table process
cross join xmltable(
  xmlnamespaces(default 'http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL'),
  'let $u := count(//definitions/process/userTask)
   let $s := count(//definitions/process/task)
   return <x><u>{$u}</u><s>{$s}</s></x>'
  passing xmltype(process.diagram) 
  columns
    userTasks number path 'u',
    tasks number path 's'
) xt

but I'm not sure that would end up any faster than the first option.

Another option is to use separate XMLQuery XPath counts for each node to check:

select
  xmlquery('declare default element namespace "http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL";
      count(//definitions/process/userTask)'
    passing xmltype(diagram)
    returning content) as userTasks,
  xmlquery('declare default element namespace "http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL";
      count(//definitions/process/task)'
    passing xmltype(diagram)
    returning content) as tasks
from process_table

db<>fiddle with a simple made-up XML CLOB that throws the error you see, and those three approaches (including converting the XMLQuery results to numbers).

I'm interested to see what other people come up with too.

---

XPath counts returns ORA-06502: PL/SQL: numeric or value error when there are more than 10 rows. When I add where clause works perfectly

When I add id = some_number, or when 10 rows are displayed it works.

This will error if a processed row has a null diagram ; but you can exclude those by just adding where diagram is not null .

db<>fiddle