XQuery with SQLServer finding nodes with a wildcard

Question

I have an XML document similar to below with multiple links stored in a SQLServer database

<Pop_Up>
    <Link1_Url />
    <Link2_Url />
    <Link3_Url>Some URL</Link3_Url>
</Pop_Up>

I'm trying to extract all the Links using:

select t.Data_xml.value('(/Pop_Up/Link*_Url)[1]','varchar(500)') as link
from TableName t

But it seems like the wildcard * is not allowed. Are there any alternative ways I can do this?

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 09 '15 at 12:14

I would iterate through the nodes and get their value, while the name corresponds to your criteria, like:

DECLARE @xml XML = '<Pop_Up>
    <Link1_Url />
    <Link2_Url />
    <Link3_Url>Some URL</Link3_Url>
</Pop_Up>'

SELECT 
    t2.c2.value('.', 'varchar(500)') linkValue,
    t2.c2.value('fn:local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(50)') as linkKey
FROM @xml.nodes('//Pop_Up') t(c)
    CROSS APPLY t.c.nodes('*') AS t2(c2)
WHERE t2.c2.value('fn:local-name(.)', 'nvarchar(50)') LIKE 'Link%_Url'

Which results in:

linkValue   linkKey
            Link1_Url
            Link2_Url
Some URL    Link3_Url

XQuery with SQLServer finding nodes with a wildcard

1 Answers1