Modify XML: attributes into elements

Question

I have an XML column that contains data with similar structure:

<Root>
    <Elements>
        <Element Code="1" Value="aaa"></Element>
        <Element Code="2" Value="bbb"></Element>
        <Element Code="3" Value="ccc"></Element>
    </Elements>
</Root>

How can I modify the data using SQL Server to change each Value attribute into an element?

<Root>
    <Elements>
        <Element Code="1">
            <Value>aaa</Value>
        </Element>
        <Element Code="2">
            <Value>bbb</Value>
        </Element>
        <Element Code="3">
            <Value>ccc</Value>
        </Element>
    </Elements>
</Root>

Update:

My XML looks more like this:

<Root attr1="val1" attr2="val2">
    <Elements>
        <Element Code="1" Value="aaa" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="2" Value="bbb" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="3" Value="ccc" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="4" Value="" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="5" ExtraData="extra" />
    </Elements>
    <ExtraData>
       <!-- Some XML is here -->
    </ExtraData>
</Root>

I would like only to move Value attribute and preserve all other attributes and elements.

Answer 1

You can shred the XML and rebuild it again using XQuery.

declare @X xml = '
<Root attr1="val1" attr2="val2">
    <Elements>
        <Element Code="1" Value="aaa" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="2" Value="" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="3" ExtraData="extra" />
    </Elements>
    <ExtraData>
       <!-- Some XML is here -->
    </ExtraData>
</Root>';

select @X.query('
  (: Create element Root :)
  element Root 
    {
      (: Add all attributes from Root to Root :)
      /Root/@*, 
      (: create element Elements under Root :)
      element Elements 
        {
          (: For each Element element in /Root/Elements :)
          for $e in /Root/Elements/Element
          return 
            (: Add element Element :)
            element Element 
              {
                (: Add all attributes except Value to Element :)
                $e/@*[local-name() != "Value"], 

                (: Check if Attribute Value exist :)
                if (data($e/@Value) != "")
                then
                  (: Create a Value element under Element :)
                  element Value 
                  {
                    (: Add attribute Value as data to the element Element :)
                    data($e/@Value)
                  }
                else () (: Empty element :)
              } 
          },
      (: Add all childelements to Root except the Elements element :)
      /Root/*[local-name() != "Elements"]
    }');

Result:

<Root attr1="val1" attr2="val2">
  <Elements>
    <Element Code="1" ExtraData="extra">
      <Value>aaa</Value>
    </Element>
    <Element Code="2" ExtraData="extra" />
    <Element Code="3" ExtraData="extra" />
  </Elements>
  <ExtraData>
    <!-- Some XML is here -->
  </ExtraData>
</Root>

If Elements is not the first element under Root the query need to be modified to add all elements before Elements first and all elements after Elements after.

Answer 2

You can also use the methods of the XML datatype (eg modify) and some XQuery to modify the xml, eg

DECLARE @x XML = '<Root attr1="val1" attr2="val2">
    <Elements>
        <Element Code="1" Value="aaa" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="2" Value="bbb" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="3" Value="ccc" ExtraData="extra" />
    </Elements>
    <ExtraData>
       <!-- Some XML is here -->
    </ExtraData>
</Root>'


SELECT 'before' s, DATALENGTH(@x) dl, @x x

-- Add 'Value' element to each Element which doesn't already have one
DECLARE @i INT = 0

WHILE @x.exist('Root/Elements/Element[not(Value)]') = 1
BEGIN

    SET @x.modify( 'insert element Value {data(Root/Elements/Element[not(Value)]/@Value)[1]} into (Root/Elements/Element[not(Value)])[1]' )

    SET @i += 1

    IF @i > 99 BEGIN RAISERROR( 'Too many loops...', 16, 1 ) BREAK END

END

-- Now delete all Value attributes
SET @x.modify('delete Root/Elements/Element/@Value' )

SELECT 'after' s, DATALENGTH(@x) dl, @x x

This method doesn't tend to scale well over large pieces of XML but might suit you better than a wholesale replacement of the XML.

You can also easily adapt this method if your XML is stored in a table. Again from experience I would not recommend running a single update against a million row table. If your table is large, consider running a cursor through it or otherwise batching the updates. Here's the technique:

DECLARE @t TABLE ( rowId INT IDENTITY PRIMARY KEY, yourXML XML )

INSERT INTO @t ( yourXML )
SELECT '<Root attr1="val1" attr2="val2">
    <Elements>
        <Element Code="1" Value="aaa" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="2" Value="bbb" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="3" Value="ccc" ExtraData="extra" />
    </Elements>
    <ExtraData>
       <!-- Some XML is here -->
    </ExtraData>
</Root>'

INSERT INTO @t ( yourXML )
SELECT '<Root attr1="val1" attr2="val2">
    <Elements>
        <Element Code="21" Value="uuu" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="22" Value="vvv" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="23" Value="www" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="24" Value="xxx" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="25" Value="yyy" ExtraData="extra" />
        <Element Code="26" Value="zzz" ExtraData="extra" />
    </Elements>
    <ExtraData>
       <!-- Some XML is here -->
    </ExtraData>
</Root>'


SELECT 'before' s, DATALENGTH(yourXML) dl, yourXML
FROM @t 

-- Add 'Value' element to each Element which doesn't already have one
DECLARE @i INT = 0

WHILE EXISTS ( SELECT * FROM @t WHERE yourXML.exist('Root/Elements/Element[not(Value)]') = 1 )
BEGIN

    UPDATE @t
    SET yourXML.modify( 'insert element Value {data(Root/Elements/Element[not(Value)]/@Value)[1]} into (Root/Elements/Element[not(Value)])[1]' )

    SET @i += 1

    IF @i > 99 BEGIN RAISERROR( 'Too many loops...', 16, 1 ) BREAK END

END

-- Now delete all Value attributes
UPDATE @t
SET yourXML.modify('delete Root/Elements/Element/@Value' )

SELECT 'after' s, DATALENGTH(yourXML) dl, yourXML
FROM @t 

Answer 3

UPDATE:

I have updated the code, as well as the input and output XML in the example query below to reflect the latest requirement, stated in a comment on @Mikael's fine answer, which is:

to not create Value element if @Value is empty or doesn't exist

While a single expression can correctly match this new variation, there does not appear to be a way to omit the empty <Value/> element in a single pass since conditional logic is not allowed in the replacement string. So, I have adapted this to be a 2 part modification: one pass to get the non-empty @Value attributes and one pass to get the empty @Value attributes. There was no need to handle <Element>s missing the @Value attribute since the desire is to not have the <Value> element anyway.

---

One option is to treat the XML as a regular string and transform it based on a pattern. This is easily accomplished using Regular Expressions (specifically the "Replace" function) which can be made available via SQLCLR code.

The example below uses the RegEx_Replace scalar UDF from the SQL# library (which I am the author of, but this RegEx function is available in the Free version, along with many others):

DECLARE @SomeXml XML;
SET @SomeXml = N'<Root attr1="val1" attr2="val2">
    <Elements>
        <Element Code="1" Value="aaa" ExtraData="extra1" />
        <Element Code="22" Value="bbb" ExtraData="extra2" />
        <Element Code="333" Value="ccc" ExtraData="extra3" />
        <Element Code="4444" Value="" ExtraData="extra4" />
        <Element Code="55555" ExtraData="extra5" />
    </Elements>
    <ExtraData>
       <Something Val="1">qwerty A</Something>
       <Something Val="2">qwerty B</Something>
    </ExtraData>
</Root>';

DECLARE @TempStringOfXml NVARCHAR(MAX),
        @Expression NVARCHAR(4000),
        @Replacement NVARCHAR(4000);


SET @TempStringOfXml = CONVERT(NVARCHAR(MAX), @SomeXml);
PRINT N'Original: ' + @TempStringOfXml;

---

SET @Expression =
              N'(<Element Code="[^"]+")\s+Value="([^"]+)"\s+(ExtraData="[^"]+")\s*/>';
SET @Replacement = N'$1 $3><Value>$2</Value></Element>';

SELECT @TempStringOfXml = SQL#.RegEx_Replace(@TempStringOfXml, @Expression,
                                             @Replacement, -1, 1, '');

PRINT '-------------------------------------';
PRINT N'Phase 1:  ' + @TempStringOfXml; -- transform Elements with a non-empty @Value

---

SET @Expression = N'(<Element Code="[^"]+")\s+Value=""\s+(ExtraData="[^"]+")\s*/>';
SET @Replacement = N'$1 $2 />';

SELECT @TempStringOfXml = SQL#.RegEx_Replace(@TempStringOfXml, @Expression,
                                             @Replacement, -1, 1, '');

PRINT '-------------------------------------';
PRINT N'Phase 2:  ' + @TempStringOfXml; -- transform Elements with an empty @Value

SELECT CONVERT(XML, @TempStringOfXml); -- prove that this is valid XML

The PRINT statements are in there just to make for easier side-by-side comparison in the "Messages" tab. The resulting output is (I modified the original XML a little to make it very clear that only the desired parts were touched and nothing else):

Original: <Root attr1="val1" attr2="val2"><Elements><Element Code="1" Value="aaa" ExtraData="extra1"/><Element Code="22" Value="bbb" ExtraData="extra2"/><Element Code="333" Value="ccc" ExtraData="extra3"/><Element Code="4444" Value="" ExtraData="extra4"/><Element Code="55555" ExtraData="extra5"/></Elements><ExtraData><Something Val="1">qwerty A</Something><Something Val="2">qwerty B</Something></ExtraData></Root>
-------------------------------------
Phase 1:  <Root attr1="val1" attr2="val2"><Elements><Element Code="1" ExtraData="extra1"><Value>aaa</Value></Element><Element Code="22" ExtraData="extra2"><Value>bbb</Value></Element><Element Code="333" ExtraData="extra3"><Value>ccc</Value></Element><Element Code="4444" Value="" ExtraData="extra4"/><Element Code="55555" ExtraData="extra5"/></Elements><ExtraData><Something Val="1">qwerty A</Something><Something Val="2">qwerty B</Something></ExtraData></Root>
-------------------------------------
Phase 2:  <Root attr1="val1" attr2="val2"><Elements><Element Code="1" ExtraData="extra1"><Value>aaa</Value></Element><Element Code="22" ExtraData="extra2"><Value>bbb</Value></Element><Element Code="333" ExtraData="extra3"><Value>ccc</Value></Element><Element Code="4444" ExtraData="extra4" /><Element Code="55555" ExtraData="extra5"/></Elements><ExtraData><Something Val="1">qwerty A</Something><Something Val="2">qwerty B</Something></ExtraData></Root>

If you want to update a field in a table, you can adapt the above to be the following:

DECLARE @NonEmptyValueExpression NVARCHAR(4000),
        @NonEmptyValueReplacement NVARCHAR(4000),
        @EmptyValueExpression NVARCHAR(4000),
        @EmptyValueReplacement NVARCHAR(4000);

SET @NonEmptyValueExpression =
                   N'(<Element Code="[^"]+")\s+Value="([^"]+)"\s+(ExtraData="[^"]+")\s*/>';
SET @NonEmptyValueReplacement = N'$1 $3><Value>$2</Value></Element>';

SET @EmptyValueExpression =
                   N'(<Element Code="[^"]+")\s+Value=""\s+(ExtraData="[^"]+")\s*/>';
SET @EmptyValueReplacement = N'$1 $2 />';

UPDATE tbl
SET    XmlField = SQL#.RegEx_Replace4k(
                                     SQL#.RegEx_Replace4k(
                                                     CONVERT(NVARCHAR(4000), tbl.XmlField),
                                                        @NonEmptyValueExpression,
                                                        @NonEmptyValueReplacement,
                                                        -1, 1, ''),
                                     @EmptyValueExpression,
                                     @EmptyValueReplacement,
                                     -1, 1, '')
FROM   SchemaName.TableName tbl
WHERE  tbl.XmlField.exist('Root/Elements/Element/@Value') = 1;

Answer 4

There are probably better ways of doing it outside of SQL Server. However, here is one way of doing it.

Your data:

declare @xml xml = N'<Root>
    <Elements>
        <Element Code="1" Value="aaa"></Element>
        <Element Code="2" Value="bbb"></Element>
        <Element Code="3" Value="ccc"></Element>
    </Elements>
</Root>';

Query:

With xml as (
    Select 
        Code = x.e.value('(@Code)', 'varchar(10)')
        , Value = x.e.value('(@Value)', 'varchar(10)')
    From @xml.nodes('/Root//Elements/Element') as x(e)
)
Select * From (
    Select code
        , (
        Select value
        From xml x1 where x1.Code = Element.Code
        For xml path(''), elements, type
    )
    From xml Element
    For xml auto, type
) as Root(Elements)
for xml auto, elements;

The xml CTE transform your xml variable into a table.

The main select then transforms the CTE back into xml.

Output:

<Root>
  <Elements>
    <Element code="1">
      <value>aaa</value>
    </Element>
    <Element code="2">
      <value>bbb</value>
    </Element>
    <Element code="3">
      <value>ccc</value>
    </Element>
  </Elements>
</Root>

It can also be done using For XML Explicit.