{"id":477,"date":"2012-07-12T11:41:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T11:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/bobb\/post\/Saving-the-contents-of-a-SQL-Server-XML-column-to-a-file.aspx"},"modified":"2013-01-03T23:59:20","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T07:59:20","slug":"saving-the-contents-of-a-sql-server-xml-column-to-a-file","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/bobb\/saving-the-contents-of-a-sql-server-xml-column-to-a-file\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving the contents of a SQL Server XML column to a file"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nWhile preparing for my TechEd talk on filetables and full-text search, I came across this tidbit that I thought was interesting.\n<\/p>\n

\nWith the advent of XML support in databases, specifically SQL Server's XML data type in SQL Server 2005, there has been two main ways to store XML; in files on the file system, and in a database. SQL Server has a built-in way to move XML data from files to the database, namely the OLE DB BULK provider and OPENROWSET SINGLE BLOB\/CLOB\/NCLOB. It looks like this\n<\/p>\n

\n— Load XML from a file
\nDECLARE @x XML;
\nSET @x = ( SELECT * FROM OPENROWSET( BULK 'C:\\invoice1.xml', SINGLE_BLOB) AS x);\n<\/p>\n

\n— Or direct to table
\nINSERT INTO dbo.invoice_docs(invoice)
\nSELECT * FROM OPENROWSET(BULK 'C:\\invoice1.xml', SINGLE_BLOB) AS x;
\ngo\n<\/p>\n

\nBecause there is no corresponding built-in way to move XML from the database to files, I'd always referred to this asymmetry as "all your XML belong to us". Or, a bit more rudely, as "SQL Server is the roach motel of XML files, they get in, but they can't get out".\n<\/p>\n

\nAll joking aside, in SQL Server 2012, filetables provide a straightforward way to export XML column data (or any data for that matter) as files using only T-SQL. Suppose I have an have a filetable named Documents. This code stores the XML resume from the row with JobCandidateID of 1 to a file in the root directory of the filetable named "JobCandidate1.xml". To store this into a subdirectory using T-SQL, see the code in this blog entry<\/a>. You can then copy the file to the file system location of your choice.\n<\/p>\n

\n— get existing database blob into files
\ndeclare @resume varbinary(max);
\ndeclare @name varchar(40);\n<\/p>\n

\nselect @resume = cast(Resume as varbinary(max))
\n        ,@name = 'JobCandidate' + cast(JobCandidateID as varchar(1)) + '.xml'
\nfrom AdventureWorks.HumanResources.JobCandidate
\nwhere JobCandidateID = 1;\n<\/p>\n

\ninsert dbo.Documents(Name, file_stream) values(@name, @resume);\n<\/p>\n

\nNow XML files can get out!\n<\/p>\n

\n@bobbeauch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While preparing for my TechEd talk on filetables and full-text search, I came across this tidbit that I thought was interesting. With the advent of XML support in databases, specifically SQL Server's XML data type in SQL Server 2005, there has been two main ways to store XML; in files on the file system, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,31,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-filetable","category-sql-server-2012","category-sql-server-xml"],"yoast_head":"\nSaving the contents of a SQL Server XML column to a file - Bob Beauchemin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/bobb\/saving-the-contents-of-a-sql-server-xml-column-to-a-file\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Saving the contents of a SQL Server XML column to a file - Bob Beauchemin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While preparing for my TechEd talk on filetables and full-text search, I came across this tidbit that I thought was interesting. 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