Formatting XML into a select statement

Question

DECLARE @Data AS XML = '
<Catalog>
<Artist>
    <name>Wolfgang</name>
    <name>Razorback</name>
</Artist>
<Album>
    <Category>Rock</Category>
    <Category>Alternative</Category>
</Album>
</Catalog>'

SELECT 
   B.value('(text())[1]','varchar(15)') as Artist,
   C.value('(text())[1]','varchar(15)') as Album
FROM  @Data.nodes('/Catalog') AS Catalog(A)
  CROSS APPLY A.nodes('Artist/name') as Artist(B)
  CROSS APPLY A.nodes('Album/Category') as Album(C)

I was expecting that the result should be like this, I realy just like to make the Artist as the first colum and Album as the second column

but it returned this query,

Answer 1

your xml is not very good. you can do this:

;with cte_artist as (
    select
        row_number() over(order by (select '1')) as rn,
        T.C.value('text()[1]','varchar(15)') as Artist
    from @Data.nodes('/Catalog/Artist/name') as T(C)
), cte_album as (
    select
        row_number() over(order by (select '1')) as rn,
        T.C.value('text()[1]','varchar(15)') as Album
    from @Data.nodes('/Catalog/Album/Category') as T(C)
)
select
    a1.Artist,
    a2.Album
from cte_artist as a1
    full outer join cte_album as a2 on a2.rn = a1.rn

sql fiddle demo

But better way would be to create xml like this (or any other nested way you want):

<Catalog>
    <Album name="Rock album">
        <Category>Rock</Category>
        <Artist name="Wolfgang"/>
    </Album>
    <Album name="Alternative album">
        <Category>Alternative</Category>
        <Artist name="Razorback"/>
    </Album>
</Catalog>

So you could query it like this:

select
    T.C.value('@name','varchar(15)') as name,
    T.C.value('(Category/text())[1]','varchar(15)') as Category,
    T.C.value('Artist[1]/@name','varchar(15)') as Artist
from @Data.nodes('/Catalog/Album') as T(C)