Can I do a find/replace in t-sql?

Question

I basically have an xml column, and I need to find and replace one tag value in each record.

Answer 1

To find a content in an XML column, look into the exist() method, as described in MSDN here.

SELECT * FROM Table
WHERE XMLColumn.exist('/Root/MyElement') = 1

...to replace, use the modify() method, as described here.

SET XMLColumn.modify('
  replace value of (/Root/MyElement/text())[1]
  with "new value"
')

..all assuming SqlServer 2005 or 2008. This is based on XPath, which you'll need to know.

Answer 2

update my_table
set xml_column = replace(xml_column, "old  value", "new value")