Question

MS SQL - Select ... FROM... where : Using Xpath

Asked by: madpat

I have a table which has a column Properties (as XML) and some other normal nvarchar columns (title, description, etc).

The XML column contains data like this:
<config>
   <props>
        <prop type='category'>house</prop>
        <prop type='category'>garage</prop>
   </props>
<config>

Now I want to do a select on every row which contains a prop/@type:category with the value garage.


Is this possible in SQL 2008.

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Asked On
2009-03-06 at 08:09:14ID24206089
Tags

xml

,

xpath

,

sql

Topic

SQL Server 2008

Participating Experts
2
Points
0
Comments
7

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Answers

 

by: MS_help_guyPosted on 2009-03-06 at 08:20:26ID: 23818090

Try to Use:
select * from [NAME] where prop/@type:category

 

by: chandresh43Posted on 2009-03-06 at 08:31:44ID: 23818218

 

by: MS_help_guyPosted on 2009-03-06 at 08:39:25ID: 23818335

Also general concepts XML Document Object Model (DOM) are here
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hf9hbf87.aspx

 

by: madpatPosted on 2009-03-06 at 14:57:56ID: 23821942

I know XML and XPath, that's not my issue. I am trying to Query on an XML datatype in MS SQL 2008:

Let's say we have a table with a few columns:
id int
title nvarchar(50)
description nvarchar(1000)
properties xml
isPublic bit

Now I have a XML in the column properties:

<config>
   <props>
        <prop type='category'>house</prop>
        <prop type='category'>garage</prop>
        <prop type='size'>large</prop>
   </props>
<config>

I want to query on the XML properties in my XML file:
Let's say I want all the records where in the XML datacolumn we have a property [@category='name'] with a textvalue 'garage'

I.E.
SELECT title, description, properties FROM TABLE_X WHERE isPublic = 1 and properties[HOW TO USE XPATH HERE?]

 

by: madpatPosted on 2009-03-08 at 03:01:41ID: 23828644

Update

I can use the method query() in my select but only as a selector:
... and properties.query('/config/props/prop[@type="category"]="garage"')

or

... and properties.exist('/config/props/prop[@type="category"]="garage"')

But this returns an error:

An expression of non-boolean type specified in a context where a condition is expected.

 

by: madpatPosted on 2009-03-08 at 04:35:13ID: 23828895

I figured out that I can query on string based nodes:

WHERE PROPERTIES.exist('
/config/props/prop[@type="category"]//text()[contains(.,"schuur")]') = 1 AND
PROPERTIES.exist('
/config/props/prop[@type="category"]//text()[contains(.,"vrijstaand")]') = 1

this works like a charm, I am testing this on a database with > 100000 records. It takes just milliseconds to return the results.

The only thing I still can't figure out is how to query on an integer, i.e. NODE VALUE > 100

 

by: madpatPosted on 2009-03-08 at 05:01:52ID: 23829016

The integer query can be used as following:

... AND PROPERTIES.exist('/config/props/prop[@type="vm"]//text()[. > sql:variable("@Price")]') = 1

Only this takes a lot of CPU and Memory and Time so I have to figure out  a better way for this.
Anyone any suggestions?

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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