Configuring namespace for sp_xml_preparedocument - sql

Question

I have an RSS xml with this format:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" version="2.0">
<channel>
<title></title>
<link></link>
<description></description>
<language></language>
<lastBuildDate></lastBuildDate>
<generator></generator>
<docs></docs>
<managingEditor></managingEditor>
<webMaster></webMaster>
<ttl></ttl>
<item>
<title></title>
<link></link>
<description></description>
<guid isPermaLink="false"></guid>
<pubDate></pubDate>
<author></author>
<dc:date></dc:date>
<dc:publisher></dc:publisher>
<dc:language></dc:language>
</item>
<item>
<title></title>
<link></link>
<description></description>
<guid isPermaLink="false"></guid>
<pubDate></pubDate>
<author></author>
<dc:date></dc:date>
<dc:publisher></dc:publisher>
<dc:language></dc:language>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>
And I want to parse it with sp_xml_preparedocument in SQLServer.
My problem is the "namespce" field. There are three tags in each item which has namespace, and I don't know how to specify them.
I have tried this:
EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument #hDoc OUTPUT, #xmlContent,'<item xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"/>'
but it just parse the first item and forget the rest!
Any idea?

Answer 1

The fact that you are only getting one row has nothing to do with the namespace. You have some error in your openxml query against #hDoc.
There might be reasons for you to still use openxml but until you show the query that is not working for you I will suggest you use the XML data type instead.
with xmlnamespaces('http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/' as dc)
select C.N.value('(title/text())[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') as channel_title,
I.N.value('(title/text())[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') as item_title,
I.N.value('(dc:publisher/text())[1]', 'nvarchar(100)') as publisher
from #XML.nodes('/rss/channel') as C(N)
cross apply C.N.nodes('item') as I(N);
SQL Fiddle

Answer 2

The namespace needs to be defined as a character type:
EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument #hDoc OUTPUT, #xmlContent,'<item xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"/>'
[ xpath_namespaces ]
Specifies the namespace declarations that are used in row and column XPath expressions in OPENXML. xpath_namespaces is a text parameter: char, nchar, varchar, nvarchar, text, ntext or xml.
The default value is . xpath_namespaces provides the namespace URIs for the prefixes used in the XPath expressions in OPENXML by means of a well-formed XML document. xpath_namespaces declares the prefix that must be used to refer to the namespace urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-metaprop; this provides metadata about the parsed XML elements. Although you can redefine the namespace prefix for the metaproperty namespace by using this technique, this namespace is not lost. The prefix mp is still valid for urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-metaprop even if xpath_namespaces contains no such declaration.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187367.aspx