Example: Specifying the ELEMENT Directive
This retrieves employee information and generates element-centric XML as shown in the following:
<Employee EmpID=...>
<Name>
<FName>...</FName>
<LName>...</LName>
</Name>
</Employee>
The query remains the same, except you add the ELEMENT directive in the column names. Therefore, instead of attributes, the <FName> and <LName> element children are added to the <Name> element. Because the Employee!1!EmpID column does not specify the ELEMENT directive, EmpID is added as the attribute of the <Employee> element.
SELECT 1 as Tag,
NULL as Parent,
E.BusinessEntityID as [Employee!1!EmpID],
NULL as [Name!2!FName!ELEMENT],
NULL as [Name!2!LName!ELEMENT]
FROM HumanResources.Employee AS E
INNER JOIN Person.Person AS P
ON E.BusinessEntityID = P.BusinessEntityID
UNION ALL
SELECT 2 as Tag,
1 as Parent,
E.BusinessEntityID,
FirstName,
LastName
FROM HumanResources.Employee AS E
INNER JOIN Person.Person AS P
ON E.BusinessEntityID = P.BusinessEntityID
ORDER BY [Employee!1!EmpID],[Name!2!FName!ELEMENT]
FOR XML EXPLICIT;
This is the partial result.
<Employee EmpID="1">
<Name>
<FName>Ken</FName>
<LName>Sánchez</LName>
</Name>
</Employee>
<Employee EmpID="2">
<Name>
<FName>Terri</FName>
<LName>Duffy</LName>
</Name>
</Employee>
...