Adding XML Schema Reference in SQL - sql

Question

I can't find for the life of me if it's possible to add a direct reference to the schema in the root of my XML.
Here is my code:
Declare #Employee table (EmployeeID int,First_Name varchar(50),Last_Name varchar(50))
Insert into #Employee values
(1,'John','Smith'),
(2,'Jane','Doe' )
Select (Select CreatedBy='My Organization',CreateDate=GetDate() For XML Path('RecordHeader'),Type )
,(Select * From #Employee For XML Path('Employee'),Type )
For XML Path ('Employees'),Type
Which produces the following results:
<Employees>
<RecordHeader>
<CreatedBy>My Organization</CreatedBy>
<CreateDate>2016-10-18T16:09:48.110</CreateDate>
</RecordHeader>
<Employee>
<EmployeeID>1</EmployeeID>
<First_Name>John</First_Name>
<Last_Name>Smith</Last_Name>
</Employee>
<Employee>
<EmployeeID>2</EmployeeID>
<First_Name>Jane</First_Name>
<Last_Name>Doe</Last_Name>
</Employee>
</Employees>
Is there a way to add part in my SQL to make the root tag to include the following:
<Employees xmlns="https://www.blahblah.org/blahblah/BlahSchema.xsd">
Thank you for the help!

Answer 1

Always had trouble with xmlns, so I use a little hack
Declare #Employee table (EmployeeID int,First_Name varchar(50),Last_Name varchar(50))
Insert into #Employee values
(1,'John','Smith'),
(2,'Jane','Doe' )
Declare #XML xml = (
Select (Select CreatedBy='My Organization',CreateDate=GetDate() For XML Path('RecordHeader'),Type )
,(Select * From #Employee For XML Path('Employee'),Type )
For XML Path ('Employees'),Type
)
set #XML.modify('insert ( attribute MyNameSpace {"https://www.blahblah.org/blahblah/BlahSchema.xsd"}) into (/Employees)[1]')
set #XML = replace(cast(#XML as nvarchar(max)),'[MyNameSpace]','xmlns')
Select #XML
Returns
<Employees xmlns="https://www.blahblah.org/blahblah/BlahSchema.xsd">
<RecordHeader>
<CreatedBy>My Organization</CreatedBy>
<CreateDate>2017-01-10T15:19:42.873</CreateDate>
</RecordHeader>
<Employee>
<EmployeeID>1</EmployeeID>
<First_Name>John</First_Name>
<Last_Name>Smith</Last_Name>
</Employee>
<Employee>
<EmployeeID>2</EmployeeID>
<First_Name>Jane</First_Name>
<Last_Name>Doe</Last_Name>
</Employee>
</Employees>
EDIT to Exclude Empty Values
NULL will be omitted by default, so if you want to exclude empty values (not null), You can convert the value to NULL via NullIf(). For example
Declare #Employee table (EmployeeID int,First_Name varchar(50),Last_Name varchar(50))
Insert into #Employee values
(1,'John','Smith'),
(2,'Jane','Doe' ),
(3,'Betty',null ), -- No element for Last_Name
(4,'Susan','' ) -- No element for Last_Name
Declare #XML xml = (
Select (Select CreatedBy='My Organization',CreateDate=GetDate() For XML Path('RecordHeader'),Type )
,(Select EmployeeID = NullIf(EmployeeID,'')
,First_Name = NullIf(First_Name,'')
,Last_Name = NullIf(Last_Name,'')
From #Employee For XML Path('Employee'),Type )
For XML Path ('Employees'),Type
)
set #XML.modify('insert ( attribute MyNameSpace {"https://www.blahblah.org/blahblah/BlahSchema.xsd"}) into (/Employees)[1]')
set #XML = replace(cast(#XML as nvarchar(max)),'[MyNameSpace]','xmlns')
Select #XML

Answer 2

You can use the WITH NAMESPACES keyword, but that adds the name space to all the nodes:
Declare #Employee table (EmployeeID int,First_Name varchar(50),Last_Name varchar(50))
Insert into #Employee values
(1,'John','Smith'),
(2,'Jane','Doe' );
WITH XMLNAMESPACES (DEFAULT 'https://www.blahblah.org/blahblah/BlahSchema.xsd')
Select (Select CreatedBy='My Organization',CreateDate=GetDate() For XML Path('RecordHeader'),Type )
,(Select * From #Employee For XML Path('Employee'),Type )
For XML Path ('Employees'),Type
Result:
<Employees xmlns="https://www.blahblah.org/blahblah/BlahSchema.xsd">
<RecordHeader xmlns="https://www.blahblah.org/blahblah/BlahSchema.xsd">
<CreatedBy>My Organization</CreatedBy>
<CreateDate>2017-01-10T16:36:23.450</CreateDate>
</RecordHeader>
<Employee xmlns="https://www.blahblah.org/blahblah/BlahSchema.xsd">
<EmployeeID>1</EmployeeID>
<First_Name>John</First_Name>
<Last_Name>Smith</Last_Name>
</Employee>
<Employee xmlns="https://www.blahblah.org/blahblah/BlahSchema.xsd">
<EmployeeID>2</EmployeeID>
<First_Name>Jane</First_Name>
<Last_Name>Doe</Last_Name>
</Employee>
</Employees>