T-Sql xml query with namespace

Question

This is a follow up question to

T-Sql xml query

If I add a namespace to xml data, nothing is returned again.

DECLARE @xVar XML
SET @xVar = 
         


        

Answer 1

Look at WITH XMLNAMESPACES

;WITH XMLNAMESPACES(DEFAULT 'http://ait.com/reportdata')
SELECT [ReportId]= reportdata.item.value('.', 'varchar(40)') 
FROM   @xVar.nodes('/ReportData/ReportId[1]') AS reportdata(item) 

Answer 2

If you are trying to extract data and the namespace might differ between records, you can use a wildcard for the namespace prefix. Just put "*:" before each element name in the last line of the OP's original code, like this:

FROM   @xVar.nodes('/*:ReportData/*:ReportId[1]') AS reportdata(item) 

Note that you need to use the wildcard at every level, not just at the same level as you see a namespace declaration in the xml. This is because namespaces are inherited by each level from the level above it.

Answer 3

If my assumptions are correct and you want to list ALL ReportData elements in your XML document and want their child elements as different columns, you could look at something like this:

;WITH XMLNAMESPACES(DEFAULT 'http://ait.com/reportdata')
SELECT 
    [ReportId] = reportdata.item.value('(./ReportId)[1]', 'varchar(40)') 
  , [DocId] = reportdata.item.value('(./DocId)[1]', 'varchar(40)') 
  , [ReportName] = reportdata.item.value('(./ReportName)[1]', 'varchar(40)') 
  , [DocType] = reportdata.item.value('(./DocType)[1]', 'varchar(40)') 
  , [StatusId] = reportdata.item.value('(./StatusId)[1]', 'varchar(40)') 
  , [AuthorId] = reportdata.item.value('(./AuthorId)[1]', 'varchar(40)') 
FROM @xVar.nodes('//ReportData') AS reportdata(item)

I'll need to look at cleaning up the namespace declarations a bit, but it seems to work for me...

EDIT: Amended my answer with the WITH XMLNAMESPACES clause as recommended by Martin. :)