Identify individual elements in repeated elements in an XML document

Question

Hello,
I'd like to identify individual elements in repeated elements in an XML document.
For example a table 'dataXML' which has a column 'sample' (XMLType). If I have an XML document such as,
<ELEMENT>
<PO>
<PONO>100</PONO>
<PONO>200</PONO>
</PO>
</ELEMENT>
I can use //PONO[1] to identify the first "PONO" element (with value 100) and //PONO[2] to identify the second "PONO" element in the document.
If I write this query:
select L.sample.extract('ELEMENT/PO/PONO/text()')).getStringVal()"SAMP"
from dataXML L
I'll receive this result:
SAMP
100200 (the first row)
And if I write this query:
select L.sample.extract('ELEMENT/PO/PONO[1]/text()')).getStringVal()"SAMP"
from dataXML L
I'll receive this result:
SAMP
100 (the first row)
But I'd like the following result:
SAMP
100 (the first row)
200 (the second row).
Could you help me, please?
Thank you very much.
Melissa Lemos

Answer 1

you have to use something like this.
select extractvalue(xmltype_column, '/Name/@attributename')
from table_name
For more details see
XMLDB Developers Guide (Oracle 9i)
Chapter - XPATH and namespace Primer
Table C2 - Location Path Examples Using Abbreviated Syntax.
Page Number 907/1044
Hope this helps.