How do you read XML column in SQL Server 2008?

Question

I have never used XML in SQL Server 2008, I need to extract a list of customers into a variable table how do you do it?

Given that I have a column called CustomerList in a Sales table that looks like something like below how do I extract the list of customers in sql?

<ArrayOfCustomers xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"        
                  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
   <Customer>
       <ItemId>1</ItemId>
       <Value>Mr Smith</Value>
   </Customer>
   <Customer>
      <ItemId>2</ItemId>
      <Value>Mr Bloggs</Value>
   </Customer>
</ArrayOfCustomers>

Answer 1

Try something like this:

SELECT
   Cust.value('(ItemId)[1]', 'int') AS 'ItemID',
   Cust.value('(Value)[1]', 'Varchar(50)') AS 'Customer Name'
FROM
   dbo.Sales.CustomerList.nodes('/ArrayOfCustomers/Customer') AS AOC(Cust)

That should give you an output something like this:

ItemID  Customer Name
   1         Mr Smith
   2         Mr Bloggs

Answer 2

You need to use CROSS APPLY from table to XML column

create table sales (customerlist xml)
insert sales select '
    <ArrayOfCustomers xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"        
                      xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
       <Customer>
           <ItemId>1</ItemId>
           <Value>Mr Smith</Value>
       </Customer>
       <Customer>
          <ItemId>2</ItemId>
          <Value>Mr Bloggs</Value>
       </Customer>
    </ArrayOfCustomers>'

Your query:

SELECT
   N.C.value('ItemId[1]', 'int') ItemId,
   N.C.value('Value[1]', 'varchar(100)') Value
FROM dbo.Sales
CROSS APPLY CustomerList.nodes('//Customer') N(C)

EDIT - note
The query above was written quickly to illustrate working with xml columns in a table (multi-row). For performance reasons, don't use '//Customer' but use an absolute path instead '/ArrayOfCustomers/Customer'. '//Customer' will go through the entire XML to find Customer nodes anywhere in the XML at any level.

Answer 3

Try this query:

SELECT  AccountDetail.value('(/Accounts/Account/AccountNumber)[1]', 'varchar(100)') AS AccountNumber,
     AccountDetail.value('(/Accounts/Account/PayeeName)[1]', 'varchar(1000)') AS PayeeName,
     AccountDetail.value('(/Accounts/Account/Amount)[1]', 'decimal(20,2)') AS Amount
FROM [dbo].[AccountDetails]