Columns that Contain a Null Value By Default

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SQL Server 2008 Books Online (October 2009)

By default, a null value in a column maps to the absence of the attribute, node, or element. This default behavior can be overwritten by requesting element-centric XML using the ELEMENTS directive and specifying XSINIL to request adding elements for NULL values, as shown in the following query:

SELECT EmployeeID as "@EmpID", 
       FirstName  as "EmpName/First", 
       MiddleName as "EmpName/Middle", 
       LastName   as "EmpName/Last"
FROM   HumanResources.Employee E, Person.Contact C
WHERE  E.EmployeeID = C.ContactID
AND    E.EmployeeID=1
FOR XML PATH, ELEMENTS XSINIL

The following shows the result. Note that if XSINIL is not specified, the <Middle> element will be absent.

<row xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" EmpID="1">
  <EmpName>
    <First>Gustavo</First>
    <Middle xsi:nil="true" />
    <Last>Achong</Last>
  </EmpName>
</row>

Concepts

Using PATH Mode

Help and Information

Getting SQL Server 2008 Assistance

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Community Content

Eric Stott

Adding empty tags on Null return from table

An easy way to create the tags without having the extra namespace and xsi:nil="true" in the tag is to simply use the ISNULL function:

SELECT EmployeeID as "@EmpID", 
       ISNULL(FirstName,'')  as "EmpName/First", 
       ISNULL(MiddleName,'') as "EmpName/Middle", 
       ISNULL(LastName,'')   as "EmpName/Last"
FROM   HumanResources.Employee E, Person.Contact C
WHERE  E.EmployeeID = C.ContactID
AND    E.EmployeeID=1
FOR XML PATH, ELEMENTS



returuns the folowing xml

<row EmpID="1">
  <EmpName>
    <First>Gustavo</First>
    <Middle></Middle>
    <Last>Achong</Last>
  </EmpName>
</row>

Tags : empty element