The function returns the string-value of the current node. This is similar to the XPATH function 'string()'.
The member function returns wide string.
This populates a table with XML data and then selects the string-value of an 'ename' element from the appropriate record.
create table TEST_XMLS (I integer primary key, XMLVAL XMLType); insert into TEST_XMLS values (1, XMLType('<emp><empno>221</empno><ename>John</ename></emp>')); insert into TEST_XMLS values (2, XMLType('<po><pono>331</pono><poname>PO_1</poname></po>')); insert into TEST_XMLS values (3, XMLType('<oil-rig id="14a" water="0.413"/><oil-rig id="14b" water="0.402"/>')); select e.XMLVAL.extract ('//ename').getStringVal() as ENAME from TEST_XMLS as e where e.XMLVAL.existsNode('/emp/empno') ENAME NVARCHAR _______________________________________________________________________________ John 1 Rows. -- 00000 msec.