XML generate from SQL Query with perfect XML structure - sql

Question

MY SQl "employee" Table Look Like
+-------+---------+--------+----------+
| Empid | Empname | Salary | Location |
+-------+---------+--------+----------+
| 1 | Arul | 100 | Chennai |
+-------+---------+--------+----------+
XML Generate from SQl Query:
select * from employee for xml path, root('root')
from this Sql Query I'm Getting My XML Files as given below
<root>
<employee>
<Empid>1</Empid>
<Empname>Arul</Empname>
<Salary>100</Salary>
<Location>Chennai</Location>
</employee>
</root>
But My Expected Output XML from SQL query as
<root>
<column>Empid</column>
<value>1</value>
<column>Empname</column>
<value>Arul</value>
</root>

Answer 1

As you were told already, the needed output format is really bad and erronous. Nevertheless this can be done quite easily:
DECLARE #mockup TABLE(Empid INT,Empname VARCHAR(100),Salary DECIMAL(10,4),[Location] VARCHAR(100));
INSERT INTO #mockup VALUES(1,'Arul',100,'Chennai')
,(2,'One',200,'More');
SELECT 'Empid' AS [Column]
,EmpId AS [Value]
,'Empname' AS [Column]
,Empname AS [Value]
-- follow this pattern...
FROM #mockup t
FOR XML PATH('employee'),ROOT('root');
The result
<root>
<employee>
<Column>Empid</Column>
<Value>1</Value>
<Column>Empname</Column>
<Value>Arul</Value>
</employee>
<employee>
<Column>Empid</Column>
<Value>2</Value>
<Column>Empname</Column>
<Value>One</Value>
</employee>
</root>
But - by any chance - you should try to change this format. This is awful to query and will be your private headache for sure...
Some better suggestions:
<Employee>
<Column name="EmpId" value="1" />
<Column name="Empname" value="Arul" />
</Employee>
or
<employee id="1" name="Arul" />
or
<employee>
<Id>1</Id>
<Name>Arul</Name>
</employee>
or (if you really, really want to stick with this), at least a column index like here
<root>
<employee>
<Column inx="1">Empid</Column>
<Value inx="1">1</Value>
<Column inx="2">Empname</Column>
<Value inx="2">Arul</Value>
</employee>
<employee>
<Column inx="1">Empid</Column>
<Value inx="1">2</Value>
<Column inx="2">Empname</Column>
<Value inx="2">One</Value>
</employee>
</root>
The query for the last one is this
SELECT 1 AS [Column/#inx]
,'Empid' AS [Column]
,1 AS [Value/#inx]
,EmpId AS [Value]
,2 AS [Column/#inx]
,'Empname' AS [Column]
,2 AS [Value/#inx]
,Empname AS [Value]
-- follow this pattern...
FROM #mockup t
FOR XML PATH('employee'),ROOT('root');