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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-17T20:27:14+00:00

I’ve got a table in a SQL Server 2008 database with an nvarchar(MAX) column

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I’ve got a table in a SQL Server 2008 database with an nvarchar(MAX) column containing XML data. The data represents search criteria. Here’s what the XML looks like for search criteria with one top-level “OR” group containing one single criterion and a nested two-criterion “AND” group.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<SearchCriterionGroupArgs xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <SingleCriteria>
    <SearchCriterionSingleArgs>
      <Operator>Equals</Operator>
      <Value>test</Value>
      <FieldIDs>
        <int>1026</int>
        <int>478</int>
      </FieldIDs>
      <EntityID>92</EntityID>
    </SearchCriterionSingleArgs>
  </SingleCriteria>
  <GroupCriteria>
    <SearchCriterionGroupArgs>
      <SingleCriteria>
        <SearchCriterionSingleArgs>
          <Operator>GreaterThan</Operator>
          <Value>2010-01-23</Value>
          <FieldIDs>
            <int>1017</int>
          </FieldIDs>
          <EntityID>92</EntityID>
        </SearchCriterionSingleArgs>
        <SearchCriterionSingleArgs>
          <Operator>LessThan</Operator>
          <Value>2013-01-23</Value>
          <FieldIDs>
            <int>1018</int>
          </FieldIDs>
          <EntityID>92</EntityID>
        </SearchCriterionSingleArgs>
      </SingleCriteria>
      <GroupCriteria />
      <EntityID>92</EntityID>
      <LogicalOperator>AND</LogicalOperator>
    </SearchCriterionGroupArgs>
  </GroupCriteria>
  <EntityID>92</EntityID>
  <LogicalOperator>OR</LogicalOperator>
</SearchCriterionGroupArgs>

Given a an input set of FieldID values, I need to search the table to find if there are any records whose search criteria refer to one of those values (these are represented in the “int” nodes under the “FieldIDs” nodes.)

By running this query:

select CAST(OptionalConditions as xml).query('//FieldIDs')
from tblMyTable

I get the results:

<FieldIDs>
  <int>1026</int>
  <int>478</int>
</FieldIDs>
<FieldIDs>
  <int>1017</int>
</FieldIDs>
<FieldIDs>
  <int>1018</int>
</FieldIDs>

(currently there’s only one record in the table with xml data in it.)

But I’m just getting started with this stuff and I don’t know what the notation would be to check those lists for the existence of any of an arbitrary set of FieldIDs. I don’t need to retrieve any particular nodes, just true or false for whether the input field IDs are referenced anywhere in the search.

Thanks for your help!

Edit: using Ranon’s solution, I got it working using a query like this:

SELECT *
FROM myTable
WHERE CAST(OptionalConditions as xml).exist('//FieldIDs/int[.=(1019,111,1018)]') = 1
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Fetch all FieldIDs and compare them with the set id IDs to check against. XQuery’s =-operator compares in a set-based semantics, so if one of the IDs on the left side equal on one the right, this expression will evaluate to true.

    //FieldIDs/int = (42, 478)

    As “478” is a FieldID, this query will return true. “42” is one not available.

    I’m not sure about whether you will be able to cast the result to some sql-server-boolean-type as I haven’t got one running, but you will easily be able to try out yourself.

    If you’re also interested in the nodes contained, you could use this query:

    //FieldIDs/int[. = (42,478)]
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