Question

Suppose I have a query like this –

SELECT * FROM 
    OPENXML(@i, '/root/authors', 2) 
        WITH authors

Now, I want to pass '/root' via a parameter/variable like –

DECLARE @nodeName varchar(MAX) ----> EDIT: Solution- Use fixed length instead of MAX
SET @nodeName = '/root'

and use @nodeName instead. Then concatenate the rest of the elements dynamically.
I am getting error just by using @nodeName in the OPENXML parameter.

Answer 1

I tried the following in SQL 2008 R2 and it works fine.

DECLARE @idoc int
DECLARE @doc varchar(1000)
SET @doc ='
<ROOT>
<Customer CustomerID="VINET" ContactName="Paul Henriot">
   <Order CustomerID="VINET" EmployeeID="5" OrderDate="1996-07-04T00:00:00">
      <OrderDetail OrderID="10248" ProductID="11" Quantity="12"/>
      <OrderDetail OrderID="10248" ProductID="42" Quantity="10"/>
   </Order>
</Customer>
<Customer CustomerID="LILAS" ContactName="Carlos Gonzlez">
   <Order CustomerID="LILAS" EmployeeID="3" OrderDate="1996-08-16T00:00:00">
      <OrderDetail OrderID="10283" ProductID="72" Quantity="3"/>
   </Order>
</Customer>
</ROOT>'
--Create an internal representation of the XML document.
EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument @idoc OUTPUT, @doc
-- Execute a SELECT statement that uses the OPENXML rowset provider.
DECLARE @NodeName VARCHAR(100)
SET @NodeName = '/ROOT/Customer'
SELECT    *
FROM       OPENXML (@idoc, @NodeName,1)
            WITH (CustomerID  varchar(10),
                  ContactName varchar(20))

It could be that other versions of SQL only support the use of NVARCHAR as a parameter, not VARCHAR.

I hope this help.