Use RAW mode with FOR XML

Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance

RAW mode transforms each row in the query result set into an XML element that has the generic identifier <row>, or the optionally provided element name. By default, each column value in the rowset that is not NULL is mapped to an attribute of the <row> element. If the ELEMENTS directive is added to the FOR XML clause, each column value is mapped to a subelement of the <row> element. Together with the ELEMENTS directive, you can optionally specify the XSINIL option to map NULL column values in the result set to an element that has the attribute, xsi:nil="true".

You can request a schema for the resulting XML. Specifying the XMLDATA option returns an in-line XDR schema. Specifying the XMLSCHEMA option returns an in-line XSD schema. The schema appears at the start of the data. In the result, the schema namespace reference is repeated for every top-level element.

The BINARY BASE64 option must be specified in the FOR XML clause to return the binary data in base64-encoded format. In RAW mode, retrieving binary data without specifying the BINARY BASE64 option will result in an error.

Next steps

This section contains the following examples:

• Example: Retrieving Product Model Information as XML
• Example: Specifying XSINIL with the ELEMENTS Directive
• Request schemas as results with XMLDATA & XMLSCHEMA
• Example: Retrieving Binary Data
• Example: Renaming the <row> Element
• Example: Specifying a Root Element for the XML Generated by FOR XML
• Example: Querying XMLType Columns

See also

• Add Namespaces to Queries with WITH XMLNAMESPACES
• Use AUTO Mode with FOR XML
• Use EXPLICIT Mode with FOR XML
• Use PATH Mode with FOR XML
• SELECT (Transact-SQL)
• FOR XML (SQL Server)