Select XML element values and display multiple rows Oracle 11g

Question

I have the following table in Oracle 11g:

         CREATE TABLE jason_xml(
            id    NUMBER(5) PRIMARY KEY,
            xml_content XMLTYPE
         )tablespace WD_T

Within the xml_content column I have an XML document:

     <results>
<return>
    <actualtime>0.0</actualtime>
    <billingamount>0.0</billingamount>
    <buildlisttext>
        <buildnumber>0</buildnumber>
        <completiondate>2007-04-10T12:36:00+02:00</completiondate>
        <componentid>0</componentid>
        <containsrecipients>false</containsrecipients>
        <containsrecipientshasbeenset>true</containsrecipientshasbeenset>
        <costamount>0.0</costamount>
        <createdate>2006-11-20T17:10:02+01:00</createdate>
        <createdbysystemuserid>89198</createdbysystemuserid>
        <currentownersystemuserid>12122</currentownersystemuserid>
        <currentownerusergroupid>0</currentownerusergroupid>
        <customerid>95</customerid>
        <description>From: Ricky Bolton</description> 
    </buildlisttext>
</return>
<return>
    <actualtime>0.0</actualtime>
    <billingamount>0.0</billingamount>
    <buildlisttext>
        <buildnumber>0</buildnumber>
        <completiondate>2007-04-10T12:36:00+02:00</completiondate>
        <componentid>0</componentid>
        <containsrecipients>false</containsrecipients>
        <containsrecipientshasbeenset>true</containsrecipientshasbeenset>
        <costamount>0.0</costamount>
        <createdate>2006-11-20T17:10:02+01:00</createdate>
        <createdbysystemuserid>89198</createdbysystemuserid>
        <currentownersystemuserid>12122</currentownersystemuserid>
        <currentownerusergroupid>0</currentownerusergroupid>
        <customerid>95</customerid>
        <description>From: Derek Trotter</description> 
    </buildlisttext>
</return>
    </results>

I'm trying to query this document from within my jason_xml table column and then have the results presented as:

        |billingamount|Description|
        |0.0          |From: Ricky Bolton|
        |0.0          |From: Derek Trotter|

I've been pointed in direction of the Oracle API but I'm not very good at reading API's and find this one to be extremely poorly written. I've tried a number of the operators defined on this page but have had no joy:

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B28359_01/appdev.111/b28369/xdb04cre.htm#BABDGFFH

I've gotten as far as this but keep getting 'invalid identifier' in PL/SQL developer. I know I'm probably going completely wrong with this so does anyone have any pointers / a solution?

     SELECT extractValue(OBJECT_VALUE, 'results/return/buildlisttext/description') "DESCRIPTION" FROM jason_xml x WHERE xmlexists('results/return/buildlisttext/description' PASSING OBJECT_VALUE);

I'm using a MySQL user with PHP and could easily do this with that combination of technologies but unfortunately I have to use Oracle 11g at work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Turns out that this is the correct response for this situation:

              SELECT xtab.billingamount, xtab.description
              FROM jason_xml jx, xmltable('/results/return' 
              PASSING jx.xml_content 
              COLUMNS billingamount varchar2(4000) path '//billingAmount', 
                      description clob path '//description'
                      )xtab;

Answer 2

Give this a try. There may be a simpler method.

SELECT EXTRACTVALUE (t.COLUMN_VALUE, 'return/billingamount') Billing_Amount,
       EXTRACTVALUE (t.COLUMN_VALUE, 'return/buildlisttext/description') Description
  FROM jason_xml,
       XMLTABLE ('for $i in /results/return return $i'
                 PASSING jason_xml.xml_content) t

Here is the SQL Fiddle example

This does not include the constraint you show, but you can add that easily to the XQuery expression.