I’ve made two stored procedures from this to use that with every table/view in the database, maybe useful for other readers of your blog:

— ===================================================================================================================================
— Author: Devi Prasad / Christian Coppes
— Original from: http://sqlserverlearner.com/2013/how-to-convert-table-data-to-xml-and-vice-versa
— Create date: 15.07.2015
— Last Change: 15.07.2015
— Description: Creates XML strings (schema and data) from a specified table
— ===================================================================================================================================
—
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.procConvertTableToXML
(
@strTableASnvarchar(128),– Name of the table to convert
@strSchemaASnvarchar(128),– Schema name of the table
@xmlTableSchemaASxml OUTPUT,– Return value of the table schema xml
@xmlTableDataASxml OUTPUT,– Return value of the table data xml
@strFilterASnvarchar(MAX) = ”– optional WHERE string
)
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON;
SET XACT_ABORT ON;

DECLARE @intReturnValue ASint = 0;
DECLARE @strSQLASnvarchar(MAX);

BEGIN TRY
SELECT @xmlTableSchema = (SELECT C.COLUMN_NAME, C.DATA_TYPE,
CASE (C.IS_NULLABLE)
WHEN ‘YES’ THEN ‘true’
ELSE ‘false’
END AS IS_NULLABLE,
(CASE C.CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH
WHEN -1 THEN ‘MAX’
ELSE CAST(C.CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH AS nvarchar(10)) END) AS CHARLENGTH
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS AS C
WHERE C.TABLE_NAME = @strTable
AND C.TABLE_SCHEMA = @strSchema
FOR XML AUTO, ROOT(‘Table’)
);

— SELECT * is OK here as this is dynamic SQL
SET @strSQL = ‘SET @xmlTableData = (SELECT TableRow.*
FROM [‘ + @strSchema + ‘].[‘ + @strTable + ‘] AS TableRow’
+ (CASE WHEN ISNULL(@strFilter,”) = ” THEN ” ELSE ‘ WHERE ‘ + @strFilter END) +
‘ FOR XML AUTO, BINARY BASE64, ROOT(”TableData”))’;

EXEC sys.sp_executesql @strSQL, N’@xmlTableData xml OUTPUT’,@xmlTableData = @xmlTableData OUTPUT;
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
RETURN -1;
END CATCH

LabelExit:
RETURN @intReturnValue;

END

—————————————

— ===================================================================================================================================
— Author: Devi Prasad / Christian Coppes
— Original from: http://sqlserverlearner.com/2013/how-to-convert-table-data-to-xml-and-vice-versa
— Create date: 15.07.2015
— Last Change: 15.07.2015
— Description: Creates XML strings (schema and data) from a specified table
— ===================================================================================================================================
—
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.procConvertXMLToTable
(
@xmlTableSchemaASxml,– XML string with the table schema created by procConvertTableToXML
@xmlTableDataASxml,– XML string with the table data created by procConvertTableToXML
@strFilterASnvarchar(MAX) = ”– optional WHERE string
)
AS
BEGIN
SET NOCOUNT ON;
SET XACT_ABORT ON;

DECLARE @intReturnValue ASint = 0;
DECLARE @strSQLASnvarchar(MAX) = ”;

BEGIN TRY

IF OBJECT_ID(‘tempdb..#tblXMLColumns’) IS NOT NULL
DROP TABLE #tblXMLColumns;

SELECT x.value(‘@COLUMN_NAME’, ‘sysname’) AS COLUMN_NAME,
x.value(‘@DATA_TYPE’, ‘sysname’) AS DATA_TYPE,
x.value(‘@IS_NULLABLE’, ‘VARCHAR(20)’) AS IS_NULLABLE,
x.value(‘@CHARLENGTH’, ‘VARCHAR(20)’) AS CHARLENGTH
INTO #tblXMLColumns
FROM @xmlTableSchema.nodes(‘/Table/C’) TempXML (x);

SET @strSQL = ‘ WITH Q AS (SELECT ‘;
SELECT @strSQL = @strSQL + ‘x.value(”@’ + COLUMN_NAME + ”’, ”’ + DATA_TYPE +
(CASE when CHARLENGTH is null then ” else ‘(‘ + CHARLENGTH + ‘)’ END) +
””+’) AS [‘ + COLUMN_NAME + ‘],’
FROM #tblXMLColumns;

SET @strSQL = LEFT(@strSQL, LEN(@strSQL) – 1);

SELECT @strSQL = @strSQL + ‘ FROM @xmlTableData.nodes(”/TableData/TableRow”) TempXML (x)) SELECT * FROM Q ‘
+ (CASE WHEN ISNULL(@strFilter,”) = ” THEN ” ELSE ‘ WHERE ‘ + @strFilter END);

EXEC sys.sp_executesql @strSQL,N’@xmlTableData xml’,@xmlTableData = @xmlTableData;

END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
RETURN -1;
END CATCH

LabelExit:
RETURN @intReturnValue;

END

————————————————————–

They can be used like this:

DECLARE@return_value int,
@xmlTableSchema xml,
@xmlTableData xml

EXEC@return_value = dbo.procConvertTableToXML
@strTable = N’NameOfTheTable’,
@strSchema = N’SchemaName’,
@xmlTableSchema = @xmlTableSchema OUTPUT,
@xmlTableData = @xmlTableData OUTPUT,
@strFilter = ‘Optional Filter like “ID < 100"'

SELECT@xmlTableSchema as N'@xmlTableSchema',
@xmlTableData as N'@xmlTableData'

SELECT'Return Value' = @return_value

EXEC@return_value = dbo.procConvertXMLToTable
@xmlTableSchema = @xmlTableSchema,
@xmlTableData = @xmlTableData,
@strFilter = 'Optional Filter like "ID < 100"'

GO

——————————————————–

Possible issue: If the amount of data is too big it returns only the schema.

Thanks for the idea,

Christian