Question

How can I grab just part of an xml column, and return it as it’s own result set in SQL?

I have an xml file in my database that looks like this:

<main>
  <data>
    <rows>
      <_items>
        <columns>
          <values>
            <keyvaluepairs>
              <keyvaluepairofstringstring>
                <key>EVENT</key>
                <value>Wedding</value>              
              </keyvaluepairofstringstring>
              <keyvaluepairofstringstring>
                <key>DETAIL</key>
                <value>Smith-Wesson</value>              
              </keyvaluepairofstringstring>
            </keyvaluepairs>              
          </values>
        </columns>
        <columns>
          <values>
            <keyvaluepairs>
              <keyvaluepairofstringstring>
                <key>EVENT</key>
                <value>Reunion</value>              
              </keyvaluepairofstringstring>
              <keyvaluepairofstringstring>
                <key>DETAIL</key>
                <value>Class of 1996</value>              
              </keyvaluepairofstringstring>
            </keyvaluepairs>
          </values>
        </columns>
        <columns>
          <values>
            <keyvaluepairs>
              <keyvaluepairofstringstring>
                <key>EVENT</key>
                <value>Pie-throwing contest</value>              
              </keyvaluepairofstringstring>
              <keyvaluepairofstringstring>
                <key>DETAIL</key>
                <value>Cherry pies</value>              
              </keyvaluepairofstringstring>
            </keyvaluepairs>              
          </values>
        </columns>
      </_items>
    </rows>
  </data>
</main>

And I want to return the “rows” as a result set like this:

EVENT                   NAME
Wedding                 Smith-Wesson
Reunion                 Class of 1996
Pie-throwing contest    Cherry pies
...etc...

I am using the method described here to query out individual values, but that isn’t enough to get all the data I really need.

I’m using SQL Server 2008.

Edit: To clarify, this xml is contained in a single row. For example, to return the above xml, I would type

select my_xml_column from my_table;

Answer 1

try this:

select X.N.value('(keyvaluepairofstringstring/value[../key = "EVENT"])[1]', 'varchar(100)') as EVENT,
       X.N.value('(keyvaluepairofstringstring/value[../key = "DETAIL"])[1]', 'varchar(100)') as NAME
from YourTable as T
  cross apply T.XMLCol.nodes('/main/data/rows/_items/columns/values/keyvaluepairs') as X(N)

Test here: https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/q/122873/

BTW, I had to fix your XML. There where some missing end tags.