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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-09T18:34:31+00:00

I am trying to write a query that pulls out the names of all

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I am trying to write a query that pulls out the names of all of the parameters in my report server. The parameters data is stored as XML in an ntext field so I don’t think I can use xquery on it.

What I initially started doing was making case statements for each parameter name I expect to find but, this is going to be tedious and I don’t think the report developers were totally consistent with parameter names (and in fact that is one of my reasons for wanting the query).

Here is what i have so far, which is pretty simplistic:

SELECT [Path], [Name], CreationDate, ModifiedDate, Parameter, 
CASE WHEN Parameter LIKE '%<Name>UserId</Name>%' THEN 'Yes' ELSE 'No' END AS  'UserId', 
CASE WHEN Parameter LIKE '%<Name>Country</Name>%' THEN 'Yes' ELSE 'No' END AS 'Country',
CASE WHEN Parameter LIKE '%<Name>Office</Name>%' THEN 'Yes' ELSE 'No' END AS 'Office'
FROM dbo.Catalog
WHERE type IN (2, 4)
AND [path] NOT LIKE '/Enterprise Reports%' 
AND [Path] NOT LIKE '/Email Subscription%'
ORDER BY [Path]

What I think I want is something more like this: 

SELECT [Path], [Name], CreationDate, ModifiedDate, Parameter.query(/Parameters/Parameter/Name)
FROM dbo.Catalog
WHERE type IN (2, 4)
AND [path] NOT LIKE '/Enterprise Reports%' 
AND [Path] NOT LIKE '/Email Subscription%'
ORDER BY [Path]

The problem is, it’s ntext, not xml. Can I just use convert on that?

The other problem is, I don’t know the xquery syntax to pull out the name field of the many parameters within the XML.

The document’s schema is very simple: 

<Parameters>
   <Parameter>
      <Name>Some name</Name>
      ...some more fields i don't care about...
   </Parameter>
   <Parameter>
      <Name>Another name</Name>
   </Parameter>
   ...more parameters, etc.
</Parameters>

I just want a list of what is in the names.

There can be many nodes and each one has a single node as a child.

UPDATE:

It seems like Nodes() should help me but I am struggling to take the examples on Books Online and a Simple Talk article and apply it to my situation. Here is what I have so far: 

SELECT [Path], [Name], CreationDate, ModifiedDate, Parameter, 
CASE WHEN Parameter LIKE '%<Name>UserId</Name>%' THEN 'Yes' ELSE 'No' END AS 'UserId', 
CASE WHEN Parameter LIKE '%<Name>Country</Name>%' THEN 'Yes' ELSE 'No' END AS 'Country',
CASE WHEN Parameter LIKE '%<Name>Office</Name>%' THEN 'Yes' ELSE 'No' END AS 'Office'
, CAST(Parameter AS XML).nodes('/Parameters/Parameter/Name')
FROM dbo.Catalog
WHERE type IN (2, 4)
AND [path] NOT LIKE '/Enterprise Reports%' 
AND [Path] NOT LIKE '/Email Subscription%'
ORDER BY [Path]
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The answer to your first question is: yes, it’s as easy as a CONVERT(xml, Parameter). Assuming that it’s well formed XML, it’ll convert just fine

    The second question is going to involve the nodes() method of the XML data type. Read all about it: nodes().

    Edit:

    Now that I’m in a position to test, here’s what I came up with:

    WITH cte AS (
    SELECT   CAST(parameter AS XML) AS parameter
    FROM     [dbo].[Catalog] AS c
)
SELECT  p.value('(./Name)[1]', 'nvarchar(50)')
FROM    cte AS c
CROSS APPLY c.Parameter.nodes('/Parameters/Parameter') AS T ( p )
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