Question

Similar to Getting xml data stored in a varchar out of SQL I need extract a value from an XML string stored in a VARCHAR column.

However, the data is on SQL Server 2000 and therefore the XML type cannot be used.

Is this possible in SQL Server 2000?

e.g. for the following XML, how can I select the values in the <status> nodes:

<entities>
    <entity>
        <name>foo</name>
        <status>1</status>
    </entity>
    <entity>
        <name>bar</name>
        <status>2</status>
    </entity>
</entities>

Answer 1

try this:

declare @xml varchar(1000)
SET @xml='<entities>
    <entity>
        <name>foo</name>
        <status>1</status>
    </entity>
    <entity>
        <name>bar</name>
        <status>2</status>
    </entity>
</entities>'
select @xml,SUBSTRING(@xml,CHARINDEX('<status>',@xml)+LEN('<status>'),(CHARINDEX('</status>',@xml)-(CHARINDEX('<status>',@xml)+LEN('<status>'))))