adding encoding information to the result of FOR XML [duplicate]

Answer 1

If you will not be attempting to manipulate the results as TSQL XML then the simplest thing to do will be create a varchar with the string you wish to append then add the XML to it using a CAST statemnt to convert the XML to varchar.

declare @testXML as XML
declare @testPrefix as varchar(255)
set @testPrefix = ''
set @testXML = '      Mike    Sanfrancisco        John    NY  '

select @testPrefix
Select @testXML
select @testPrefix + CAST(@testXML as varchar(max))