How to get parent element name using OpenXML in sqlserver

Question

If I have some xml:

<Users>
    <User>
        <property1>sdfd</property1>
        ...
    <User>
    ... 
</Users>

And my sql is:

SELECT 
    *
FROM
    OpenXML(@idoc, '/Users/User')
    WITH (  
          [property1] varchar(50) 'property1',
          ...
    )

How can I get the name of the parent element and return that in the dataset?

Answer 1

This page from MSDN docs on OpenXML seems to indicate you should be able to use the ".." notation for the parent:

declare @idoc int
declare @doc varchar(1000)

set @doc ='<ROOT>
<Customer CustomerID="VINET" ContactName="Paul Henriot">
   <Order OrderID="10248" CustomerID="VINET" EmployeeID="5" 
           OrderDate="1996-07-04T00:00:00">
      <OrderDetail ProductID="11" Quantity="12"/>
      <OrderDetail ProductID="42" Quantity="10"/>
   </Order>
</Customer>
<Customer CustomerID="LILAS" ContactName="Carlos Gonzlez">
   <Order OrderID="10283" CustomerID="LILAS" EmployeeID="3" 
           OrderDate="1996-08-16T00:00:00">
      <OrderDetail ProductID="72" Quantity="3"/>
   </Order>
</Customer>
</ROOT>'

--Create an internal representation of the XML document.
exec sp_xml_preparedocument @idoc OUTPUT, @doc

-- SELECT stmt using OPENXML rowset provider
SELECT *
FROM   OPENXML (@idoc, '/ROOT/Customer/Order/OrderDetail',2)
         WITH (OrderID       int         '../@OrderID',
               CustomerID  varchar(10) '../@CustomerID',
               OrderDate   datetime    '../@OrderDate',
               ProdID      int         '@ProductID',
               Qty         int         '@Quantity')

Does that work in your case, too?

UPDATE:
Try this (the "pseudo-attribute" @mp:parentlocalname) :

SELECT *
FROM   OPENXML (@idoc, '/ROOT/Customer/Order/OrderDetail',2)
         WITH (OrderID       int         '../@OrderID',
               CustomerID  varchar(10) '../@CustomerID',
               OrderDate   datetime    '../@OrderDate',
               ProdID      int         '@ProductID',
               Qty         int         '@Quantity',
               ParentNodeName  varchar(50) '@mp:parentlocalname' )

Does this now do what you want? :-)

See a whole list of these "pseudo-attributes" in this article at ExtremeExperts.

Marc