XML system stored procedures

Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance

SQL Server provides the following system stored procedures that are used together with OPENXML:

To write queries by using OPENXML, you must first create an internal representation of the XML document by calling sp_xml_preparedocument. The stored procedure returns a handle to the internal representation of the XML document. This handle is then passed to OPENXML. OPENXML provides rowset views of the document based on XPaths. Specifically, this is one row pattern and one or more column patterns.

Note

The document handle that is returned by sp_xml_preparedocument is valid for the duration of the session.

The internal representation of an XML document can be removed from memory by calling the sp_xml_removedocument system stored procedure.

See also