Question

I have several queries stored in an XML File. The entry giving me issues is:

<Xiphos>
        SELECT 
      'AccountGrants', 
          cast (STUFF (SUBSTRING(b.PiiData,0,PATINDEX ('%</AccountNumber>%',b.PiiData ) ),1,24,'') as char(40) ) as Gen2accountNumber  
      ,[GrantTypeId] as GrantType-- constant always 1
      ,[GrantAmount]  as GrantedAmount
      ,[UsedAmount]
      ,[AwardedDate]
      ,[ExpirationDate]
      FROM [Xiphos].[dbo].[AccountGrants]a
      join Xiphos.dbo.Accounts b
      on a.AccountId = b.AccountId
      where b.FinancialInstitutionId =@InstitutionId
      order by Gen2accountNumber,AwardedDate;
</Xiphos>

The 3rd line of the query that has “</AccountNumber>” in it is causing my project to not compile because it thinks this is a malformed XML statement (or missing the opening AccountNumber).

I can’t seem to figure out how to either reformat the query or modify my XML such that this doesn’t happen.

The PiiData column causing the problem looks like:

<PiiData><AccountNumber>150</AccountNumber>

Answer 1

The issue is with the < and > characters in your query – they are treated as normal XML and you need to escape them – there are a couple of ways to do this.

You can enclose the query in a <![CDATA[]]> section:

<Xiphos>
  <![CDATA[
        SELECT 
      'AccountGrants', 
          cast (STUFF (SUBSTRING(b.PiiData,0,PATINDEX ('%</AccountNumber>%',b.PiiData ) ),1,24,'') as char(40) ) as Gen2accountNumber  
      ,[GrantTypeId] as GrantType-- constant always 1
      ,[GrantAmount]  as GrantedAmount
      ,[UsedAmount]
      ,[AwardedDate]
      ,[ExpirationDate]
      FROM [Xiphos].[dbo].[AccountGrants]a
      join Xiphos.dbo.Accounts b
      on a.AccountId = b.AccountId
      where b.FinancialInstitutionId =@InstitutionId
      order by Gen2accountNumber,AwardedDate;
  ]]>
</Xiphos>

Alternatively, escape them by using their entity references – < for < and > for >.