generate structured (xml) document from hierarchical table data (T-SQL)

Question

I have a table like this (simplified):

ID   |   Name  |   Parent
---------------------------------
1    |  IND    |   NULL
2    |  INS    |   5
3    |  CON           


        

Answer 1

You can also do this without creating a separate function, by including the sub-query as an additional column that returns XML. For example, the following will return a hierarchical XML document containing users and their associated list of roles:

SELECT 
    FirstName, LastName,
    CONVERT(XML, 
      (SELECT r.UserID, r.RoleID
       FROM global.[UserRole] r
       WHERE r.USerID = [user].UserID
       FOR XML RAW ('Role'), ELEMENTS, root('Roles')
      ))
FROM global.[user]
FOR XML RAW ('User'), ELEMENTS, root('Users')