XML data (SQL Server)
Applies to: 
SQL Server
Azure SQL Database
Azure SQL Managed Instance
SQL Server provides a powerful platform for developing rich applications for semi-structured data management. Support for XML is integrated into all the components in SQL Server in the following ways:
The xml data type. XML values can be stored natively in an xml data type column that can be typed according to a collection of XML schemas, or left untyped. You can index the XML column.
The ability to specify an XQuery query against XML data stored in columns and variables of the xml type.
Enhancements to OPENROWSET to allow bulk loading of XML data.
The FOR XML clause, to retrieve relational data in XML format.
The OPENXML function, to retrieve XML data in relational format.
XML compression provides a method to compress off-row XML data for both XML columns and indexes, improving capacity requirements. For more information, see CREATE TABLE (Transact-SQL) and CREATE INDEX (Transact-SQL). XML compression is available in SQL Server 2022 (16.x) and later versions, Azure SQL Database, and Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Next steps
- XML Data Type and Columns (SQL Server)
- XML Indexes (SQL Server)
- XML Schema Collections (SQL Server)
- FOR XML (SQL Server)
- OPENXML (Transact-SQL)