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Example: Specifying XSINIL with the ELEMENTS Directive

  • Article

The following query specifies the ELEMENTS directive to generate element-centric XML from the query result.

Example

USE AdventureWorks2012;  
GO  
SELECT ProductID, Name, Color  
FROM Production.Product  
FOR XML RAW, ELEMENTS;  
GO

This is the partial result.

<row>  
  <ProductID>1</ProductID>  
  <Name>Adjustable Race</Name>  
</row>  
...  
<row>  
  <ProductID>317</ProductID>  
  <Name>LL Crankarm</Name>  
  <Color>Black</Color>  
</row>

Because the Color column has null values for some products, the resulting XML will not generate the corresponding <Color> element. By adding the XSINIL directive with ELEMENTS, you can generate the <Color> element even for NULL color values in the result set.

USE AdventureWorks2012;  
GO  
SELECT ProductID, Name, Color  
FROM Production.Product  
FOR XML RAW, ELEMENTS XSINIL ;

This is the partial result:

<row xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">  
  <ProductID>1</ProductID>  
  <Name>Adjustable Race</Name>  
  <Color xsi:nil="true" />  
</row>  
...  
<row>  
  <ProductID>317</ProductID>  
  <Name>LL Crankarm</Name>  
  <Color>Black</Color>  
</row>

See Also

Use RAW Mode with FOR XML