updatexml tips

Oracle Database Tips by Donald BurlesonJune 5, 2016

This function updates the scalar value of the XML tag in an XML document or an XML Element, which passed as an argument by the user.

The prototype for defining the UPDATEXML function is shown below,

UPDATEXML(<XML_Document> | <XML_Element>, <XPath_Expression>, <Scalar_value>)

The Pages tag from the parent document is updated to 30 from 25 using this function as shown below,

UPDATE book_store

SET book_details_xml=updatexml(book_details_xml,'/Rack1/Pages/text()',30)

WHERE book_id =1001;

After the update is performed, the changes can be verified by using the EXTRACTVALUE function as shown below,

select extractvalue(book_details_xml,'/Rack1/Pages') from book_store;

Result:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATEXML searches for an XPATHexpression and updates it.

SELECT
   EXTRACT(
      UPDATEXML
      (
         OBJECT_VALUE,
         '//DETAILS[ENTRY="1291-01-01"]/ENTRY',
         XMLELEMENT(ENTRY, TO_DATE('01-08-1291','DD-MM-YYYY'))
      )
      , '//CANTON[NAME="Uri"]'
   ) URI
FROM
   WORLD;

URI
---------------------------------
< CANTON ID="UR">
   <NAME>Uri</NAME>
   <DETAILS>
      <ENTRY>1291-08-01</ENTRY>
      <LANGUAGE>German</LANGUAGE>
   </DETAILS>
< /CANTON>

In the WORLD table, each entry of 1291-01-01 is updated by a new date. In the latest versions of Oracle, the XML dates are stored according to the XML convention SYYYY‑MM‑DD for dates and SYYYY‑MM‑DD't?HH24:MI:SSXFF for timestamps. In earlier releases, the date was stored according to the NLS settings.

UPDATEXML can change any element of the document.

SELECT
   UPDATEXML
   (
      XMLTYPE
      (
         CURSOR
         (
            SELECT
             *
            FROM
               DEPT
          )
      ),
      '//ROW[DEPTNO=10]/LOC',
      XMLTYPE('<CLOSED/>')
   ) DEPT
FROM
   DUAL;

DEPT
-----------------------------------
< ?xml version="1.0"?>
< ROWSET>
   <ROW>
      <DEPTNO>10</DEPTNO>
      <DNAME>ACCOUNTING</DNAME>
      <CLOSED/>
   </ROW>
   <ROW>
      <DEPTNO>20</DEPTNO>
      <DNAME>RESEARCH</DNAME>
      <LOC>DALLAS</LOC>
   </ROW>
   <ROW>
      <DEPTNO>30</DEPTNO>
      <DNAME>SALES</DNAME>
      <LOC>CHICAGO</LOC>
</ROW>
   <ROW>
      <DEPTNO>40</DEPTNO>
      <DNAME>OPERATIONS</DNAME>
      <LOC>BOSTON</LOC>
   </ROW>
< /ROWSET>

The location of department 10 is replaced by an empty tag. The underlying table DEPT is not changed, only the result set is modified.

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