xml Data Type Methods

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SQL Server 2005 Books Online (November 2008)

The following table lists the xml data type methods.

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Topic	Description
query() Method (xml Data Type)	Use this method to query over an XML instance.
value() Method (xml Data Type)	Use this method to retrieve a value of SQL type from an XML instance.
exist() Method (xml Data Type)	Use this method to determine whether a query returns a nonempty result.
modify() Method (xml Data Type)	Use this method to specify XML DML statements to perform updates.
nodes() Method (xml Data Type)	Use this method to shred XML into multiple rows to propagate parts of XML documents into rowsets.

You call these methods by using the user-defined type method invocation syntax. For example:

SELECT XmlCol.query(' ... ')
FROM   Table

Note:
The xml data type methods query(), value(), and exist() return NULL if executed against a NULL XML instance. Also, modify() does not return anything, but nodes() returns rowsets and an empty rowset with a NULL input.