Question

I know that I can do this –

declare @args xml = '<arg><value>hello</value></arg><arg><value>world</value></arg>';

select arg.value('value[1]', 'nvarchar(max)')
from @args.nodes('//arg') args(arg);

But I’d like to do something like this (without the superfluous <value> tags) –

declare @args xml = '<arg>hello</arg><arg>world</arg>';

select arg.value('?', 'nvarchar(max)')
from @args.nodes('//arg') args(arg);

What’s the right XQuery expression?

Answer 1

declare @args xml = '<arg>hello</arg><arg>world</arg>';

select arg.value('text()[1]', 'nvarchar(max)')
from @args.nodes('//arg') args(arg);