Functions › Scalar Functions › XML Functions › Descriptions of Functions › XMLSERIALIZE

XMLSERIALIZE

This function converts an XML value into the corresponding representation in an alternative character-string data-type. XMLSERIALIZE converts XML types to string types for export to user host-variables.

Note: When XMLSERIALIZE is used to externalize floating point data, 15 is the maximum number of significant digits produced.

Following is the syntax diagram for XMLSERIALIZE:

├── XMLSERIALIZE ─ ( ─┬─ DOCUMENT ─┬─ xml-value-expression ─ AS ─ data-type ──►
                      └─ CONTENT ──┘

 ►─ ) ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤

DOCUMENT

Specifies that the result of the xml-value-expression is a validly formed XML document.

CONTENT

Specifies well-formed XML content.

xml-value-expression

Any expression whose result is an XML value, such as XMLELEMENT (see XMLELEMENT), XMLCONCAT (see XMLCONCAT), or XMLFOREST (see XMLFOREST).

data-type

Must specify some character-string type.

The following example is a repetition of our XMLELEMENT example and produces a Customer element for each customer, with customer number and name attributes:

SELECT XMLSERIALIZE(CONTENT
                    XMLELEMENT(NAME "Customer",
                               XMLATTRIBUTES(CustNo,
                                             surName as LastName,
                                             FirstName)
                              )
                    AS VARCHAR(200)) AS "CustomerList"
  FROM customers

The result of the previous example follows:

CustomerList
VARCHAR(200)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<-Customer CustNo="000001" LastName="Sturlasson" FirstName="Snorri"><-/Customer>
<-Customer CustNo="000002" LastName="Skallagrimsson" FirstName="Eigil"><-/Customer>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------