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

title	Server-side XML Formatting (SQLXML 4.0) | Microsoft Docs
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ms.date	03/14/2017
ms.prod	sql-server-2016
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helpviewer_keywords	FOR XML clause, formatting server-side XML formatting
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Server-side XML Formatting (SQLXML 4.0)

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)