server-side-xml-formatting-sqlxml-4-0.md

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title: "Server-side XML Formatting (SQLXML 4.0) | Microsoft Docs" ms.custom: "" ms.date: "03/14/2017" ms.prod: "sql" ms.prod_service: "database-engine, sql-database" ms.service: "" ms.component: "sqlxml" ms.reviewer: "" ms.suite: "sql" ms.technology: xml ms.tgt_pltfrm: "" ms.topic: "reference" helpviewer_keywords:

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Server-side XML Formatting (SQLXML 4.0)

[!INCLUDEappliesto-ss-asdb-xxxx-xxx-md] This topic provides information about formatting XML documents on the server side from the rowsets that are generated by queries executed against a database in Microsoft [!INCLUDEssNoVersion].

In [!INCLUDEssNoVersion], you can store and retrieve XML documents to and from database tables. To retrieve an XML document, use the FOR XML query extension in a SELECT query.

For example, assume a client application executes a command against [!INCLUDEssNoVersion] that consists of the following [!INCLUDEtsql] query:

SELECT FirstName, LastName  
FROM   Person.Contact  
FOR XML AUTO  

The server executes the query in two steps. First, the server executes this SELECT statement:

SELECT FirstName, LastName  
FROM   Person.Contact  

Then the server applies the FOR XML transformation to the generated rowset. The resulting XML is then sent to the client as a one-column rowset. In this documentation, this process is referred to as server-side XML formatting.

On the server side, you can specify the following modes with a FOR XML clause:

• RAW

• AUTO

• EXPLICIT

For more information about the FOR XML clause, see Constructing XML Using FOR XML.

See Also

Architecture of Client-side and Server-side XML Formatting (SQLXML 4.0)
Client-side XML Formatting (SQLXML 4.0)
FOR XML (SQL Server)