Concatenate XML From Various XML Columns without type casting to string

Question

I have three XML columns in my SQL Table (single row table just used for storing XML) and the XML structure is something like this:

In Column 1 -

<Column1XML>
    ....
</Column1XML>

In Column 2 -

<Column2XML>
    ....
</Column2XML>

In Column 3 -

<Column3XML>
    ....
</Column3XML>

The final resultant XML that I am looking for is:

<SomeTagName>
    <Column1XML>
        ....
    </Column1XML>
    <Column2XML>
        ....
    </Column2XML>
    <Column3XML>
        ....
    </Column3XML>
</SomeTagName>

How can I obtain this required structure without doing string concatenation? I am sure there must be a way out with Typed XML.

Thanks in advance for looking up my question.

Answer 1

Here are two ways for you.

Sample data

declare @T table
(
  Col1 xml,
  Col2 xml,
  Col3 xml
)

insert into @T values
(
'<Column1XML></Column1XML>',
'<Column2XML></Column2XML>',
'<Column3XML></Column3XML>'
)

Use the root name as column alias

select Col1 as 'SomeTagName',
       Col2 as 'SomeTagName',
       Col3 as 'SomeTagName' 
from @T
for xml path('')

Use * as column alias and specify a path().

select Col1 as '*',
       Col2 as '*',
       Col3 as '*' 
from @T
for xml path('SomeTagName')

Result:

<SomeTagName>
  <Column1XML />
  <Column2XML />
  <Column3XML />
</SomeTagName>