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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-12T02:01:20+00:00

I have varchar2 column in DB. And this column stores string in xml format.

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I have varchar2 column in DB. And this column stores string in xml format.
But not all strings are well-formed xml (some with mistakes).
How can I check is this string well-formed xml or not?

If this string isn’t well formed xml, sql-query like this will fail at runtime:

   select 
       extractvalue(xmltype(some_table.value), 'Attachment/@category')
   from some_table

Xml has following format:

   <Attachment {attributes} />

Number of attributes in each string can be different.

So when the string like ‘asdf’ would occur my query wouldn’t fail.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Here’s a simple function that will check it for you;

    CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION isXML(xml CLOB)
RETURN NUMBER
AS
  xmldata XMLTYPE;
BEGIN
  xmldata := XMLTYPE(xml);
  return 1;
EXCEPTION
  when others then
    return 0;
END;
/

    You can use it as;

    SQL> SELECT isXML('fdjkasksdf') FROM DUAL;

ISXML('FDJKASKSDF')
-------------------
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SQL> SELECT isXML('<body></body>') FROM DUAL;

ISXML('<BODY></BODY>')
----------------------
                     1
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