Why would I ever choose to store and manipulate XML in a relational database?

Question

Modern RDBMS\'s have support for XML column types and functionality for dealing with XML in stored procedures. Historically I would always have mapped hierarchical data (whe

Answer 1

Flexibility is one reason.

If the structure of your data can vary, then you can still keep a common RDBMS table, along with the queries, etc. that gor after it with the somewhat variably structured data.

If you need to add a field at some point, you can do so without changing your RDMS table structure, and thus not break everyone else's queries.