Extracting XML to required output

Question

Hi Gurus, Need some help for extracting data from XML to Relation Query Output format.Below is the XML string.
<LineItems>
<OBJECT>FIRST</OBJECT>
<LineItem ItemNumber="1">
<Description>A Night to Remember</Description>
<Part Id="715515009058" UnitPrice="39.95" Quantity="2"/>
</LineItem>
<LineItem ItemNumber="2">
<Description>The Unbearable Lightness Of Being</Description>
<Part Id="37429140222" UnitPrice="29.95" Quantity="2"/>
</LineItem>
<LineItem ItemNumber="3">
<Description>Sisters</Description>
<Part Id="715515011020" UnitPrice="29.05" Quantity="4"/>
</LineItem>
<OBJECT>SECOND</OBJECT>
<LineItem ItemNumber="4">
<Description>A Night to Remember</Description>
<Part Id="715515009059" UnitPrice="49.95" Quantity="1"/>
</LineItem>
<LineItem ItemNumber="5">
<Description>The Unbearable Lightness Of Being</Description>
<Part Id="37429140260" UnitPrice="30.95" Quantity="3"/>
</LineItem>
<LineItem ItemNumber="6">
<Description>Sisters</Description>
<Part Id="715515011061" UnitPrice="19.95" Quantity="5"/>
</LineItem>
</LineItems>I want output to be like this:
Object   Item_Number    Description                          Part_id         Unit_price      Quantity
FIRST         1         A Night to Remember                  715515009058    39.95           2
FIRST         2         The Unbearable Lightness Of Being    37429140222     29.95           2
FIRST         3         Sisters                              715515011020    29.05           4
SECOND        4         A Night to Remember                  715515009059    49.95           1
SECOND        5         The Unbearable Lightness Of Being    37429140260     30.95           3
SECOND        6         Sisters                              715515011061    19.95           5

Answer 1

BluShadow wrote:
Unfortunately, your XML is not well formed in relational terms, i.e. there's nothing to relate LineItem's to any particular OBJECT. You can't just assume that because an OBJECT appears before the LineItem's that those LineItem's belong to it. If you considered an XML schema to describe what you've shown in your XML it would be (in simplistic terms) a LineItems element containing any number of "OBJECT" or "LineItem" elements.... nothing relating those to each other.
You'd need to structure your XML so the LineItem elements are contained within the OBJECT elements... e.g.Although I entirely agree with your comments, just a few words about :
You can't just assume that because an OBJECT appears before the LineItem's that those LineItem's belong to itContrary to the relational way, the order does matter in an XML document.
However, for obvious reasons like the ones we're seeing here, it's not a good practice to use such structures as a schema can't describe it easily.
One way of getting the output :
SQL> with t as (select xmltype('<LineItems>
  2    <OBJECT>FIRST</OBJECT>
  3    <LineItem ItemNumber="1">
  4      <Description>A Night to Remember</Description>
  5      <Part Id="715515009058" UnitPrice="39.95" Quantity="2"/>
  6    </LineItem>
  7    <LineItem ItemNumber="2">
  8      <Description>The Unbearable Lightness Of Being</Description>
  9      <Part Id="37429140222" UnitPrice="29.95" Quantity="2"/>
10    </LineItem>
11    <LineItem ItemNumber="3">
12      <Description>Sisters</Description>
13      <Part Id="715515011020" UnitPrice="29.05" Quantity="4"/>
14    </LineItem>
15    <OBJECT>SECOND</OBJECT>
16    <LineItem ItemNumber="4">
17      <Description>A Night to Remember</Description>
18      <Part Id="715515009059" UnitPrice="49.95" Quantity="1"/>
19    </LineItem>
20    <LineItem ItemNumber="5">
21      <Description>The Unbearable Lightness Of Being</Description>
22      <Part Id="37429140260" UnitPrice="30.95" Quantity="3"/>
23    </LineItem>
24    <LineItem ItemNumber="6">
25      <Description>Sisters</Description>
26      <Part Id="715515011061" UnitPrice="19.95" Quantity="5"/>
27    </LineItem>
28  </LineItems>') as xml from dual)
29  --
30  -- end of test data
31  --
32  select x.*
33  from t
34     , xmltable(
35         'for $i in /LineItems/LineItem
36          return element r {
37            $i/preceding-sibling::OBJECT[1]
38          , $i
39          }'
40         passing t.xml
41         columns object      varchar2(15) path 'OBJECT'
42               , item_number number       path 'LineItem/@ItemNumber'
43               , description varchar2(40) path 'LineItem/Description'
44               , part_id     varchar2(15) path 'LineItem/Part/@Id'
45               , unit_price  number       path 'LineItem/Part/@UnitPrice'
46               , quantity    number       path 'LineItem/Part/@Quantity'
47       ) x
48  ;
OBJECT          ITEM_NUMBER DESCRIPTION                              PART_ID         UNIT_PRICE   QUANTITY
FIRST                     1 A Night to Remember                      715515009058         39,95          2
FIRST                     2 The Unbearable Lightness Of Being        37429140222          29,95          2
FIRST                     3 Sisters                                  715515011020         29,05          4
SECOND                    4 A Night to Remember                      715515009059         49,95          1
SECOND                    5 The Unbearable Lightness Of Being        37429140260          30,95          3
SECOND                    6 Sisters                                  715515011061         19,95          5
6 rows selected