SQL Pivot using an XML column

Question

Does anyone have an example of a pivot using a table with an XML column in it - specifically turning some of the elements in the xml column into a column in the pivot table? I'm trying to build one, but the syntax is killing me; xml in sql is damn hard to work with, compared to xml in C#. I suspect this is impossible, but it wouldn't hurt to check :)

Answer 1

Here is a simple example that has Stores with Product details stored in xml. The pivot is at the bottom which shows the stores and a sum of price by categories A and B.

declare @test Table
(

 StoreID int,
 ProdXml xml
)

insert into @test
select 1, '<product cat="A" name="foo" price="10" />' union
select 2, '<product cat="A" name="bar" price="12" />' union
select 1, '<product cat="B" name="blah" price="35" />' union 
select 2, '<product cat="B" name="bap" price="67" />' union
select 1, '<product cat="C" name="bip" price="18" />' union
select 2, '<product cat="A" name="bing" price="88" />' union
select 1, '<product cat="B" name="bang" price="34" />' union 
select 2, '<product cat="B" name="boom" price="65" />' 

--Pivot showing sum of price by Cat
select  StoreID, A, B
from
( 
 select StoreID,
  ProdXml.value('/product[1]/@cat[1]','varchar(20)') as [ProdCat],
  ProdXml.value('/product[1]/@price[1]','int') as [ProdPrice]
 from  
  @test
) up
PIVOT (SUM([ProdPrice]) FOR [ProdCat] IN ( A, B)) as pvt
ORDER BY StoreID