Implicit list when using TABLE OF instances within an object.

Question

I have been searching for a solution for this problem, but to no avail.
I have an XML schema which specifies within the root element:
<xsd:element name="onestring" type="xs:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>
<xsd:element name="manystrings" type="xs:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
So I have created a few types in my database:
CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE VARCHAR_TABLE AS TABLE OF VARCHAR(5);
CREATE OR REPLACE TYPE rootelement AS OBJECT(
onestring VARCHAR(5),
manystrings VARCHAR_TABLE
Now I preform the following:
DECLARE
xml XMLTYPE;
obj rootelement;
BEGIN
     obj := rootelement('valA', VARCHAR_TABLE('val1','val2','val3'));
     xml := XMLTYPE(obj);
     print_out( xml.getstringval );
END;
And from this, the result I get is:
<ROOTELEMENT>
<ONESTRING>valA</ONESTRING>
<MANYSTRINGS>
<VARCHAR2>val1</VARCHAR2>
<VARCHAR2>val2</VARCHAR2>
<VARCHAR2>val3</VARCHAR2>
</MANYSTRINGS>
</ROOTELEMENT>
When what I would like to see is:
<ROOTELEMENT>
<ONESTRING>valA</ONESTRING>
<MANYSTRINGS>val1</MANYSTRINGS>
<MANYSTRINGS>val2</MANYSTRINGS>
<MANYSTRINGS>val3</MANYSTRINGS>
</ROOTELEMENT>
Can this be accomplished? I also need the outputted XML to be able to be read back in. (Currently I am calling XMLTYPE(xml).toObject(obj); ).
Thanks in advance.
Dave

Answer 1

Well, since XSL Transformations worked in 10.1 too, the following will do what you want
SELECT XMLTYPE(ROOTELEMENT('valA', VARCHAR_TABLE('val1', 'val2', 'val3'))).TRANSFORM(XMLTYPE('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
    <xsl:template match="*">
        <xsl:choose>
            <xsl:when test="*">
                <xsl:apply-templates/>
            </xsl:when>
            <xsl:otherwise>
                <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
            </xsl:otherwise>
        </xsl:choose>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="/ROOTELEMENT/MANYSTRINGS/node()">
        <xsl:element name="{name(..)}">
            <xsl:value-of select="text()">
       </xsl:value-of>
        </xsl:element>
    </xsl:template>
    <xsl:template match="ROOTELEMENT">
        <ROOTELEMENT>
            <xsl:apply-templates/>
        </ROOTELEMENT>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
')) AS TRANSFORMED
  FROM DUALSorry for providing an earlier solution that would not apply to your version, but I find it hard to remember the features of each distinct one. I vaguely remembered (I work with 11g for quite a bit now) that APPENDCHILDXML was 10g functionality, but did not remember that it was actually 10.2.
Regards
Philip