ORA-19279: Query dynamic type mismatch: expected singleton sequence

Question

Hi,
I have my xml stored in the table 'xml_table’
The content of XML is a follows:
<COMPANY NAME="ABC">
<DEPARTMENT_NAME>Paris</DEPARTMENT_NAME>
<ADDRESS>Rue de nevers</ADDRESS>
<DEPARTMENT_NAME>London</DEPARTMENT_NAME>
<ADDRESS>Northampton Square</ADDRESS>
</COMPANY>
I would like to query the xml to get the output like that:
COMPANY_NAME | DEPARTMENT_NAME | ADDRESS
ABC | Paris | rue de nevers
ABC | London | Northampton Square
However when I execute the query:
SELECT t.company_name, t.address, t.department_name
FROM xml_table p,
XMLTable('/COMPANY' PASSING p.OBJECT_VALUE
COLUMNS company_name PATH '@NAME',
address VARCHAR2(100) PATH '/COMPANY/ADDRESS',
department_name VARCHAR2(100) PATH '/COMPANY/DEPARTMENT_NAME') t
I am getting error:
ORA-19279: XPTY0004 - XQuery dynamic type mismatch: expected singleton sequence - got multi-item sequence
What can be wrong with the query? Howe should it be modified to get desired output?
Thank for help
Groxy

Answer 1

As was mentioned... Enclosing the tags for each department in a DEPARTMENT tag would make this easier and more effiecient but here's an alternative approach if modifying the XML is not an option
SQL> with COMPANY_XML as
  2  (
  3    select XMLTYPE(
  4  '<COMPANY NAME="ABC">
  5     <DEPARTMENT_NAME>Paris</DEPARTMENT_NAME>
  6     <ADDRESS>Rue de nevers</ADDRESS>
  7     <DEPARTMENT_NAME>London</DEPARTMENT_NAME>
  8     <ADDRESS>Northampton Square</ADDRESS>
  9  </COMPANY>') as OBJECT_VALUE from dual
10  )
11  select R.*
12    from COMPANY_XML,
13         XMLTABLE
14         (
15            'for $COMP in $COMPANY/COMPANY
16               for $DEPT at $DEPTIDX in $COMP/DEPARTMENT_NAME
17                 return <RESULT>
18                         <NAME>{fn:data($COMP/@NAME)}</NAME>
19                         {
20                           $COMP/DEPARTMENT_NAME[$DEPTIDX],
21                           $COMP/ADDRESS[$DEPTIDX]
22                         }
23                       </RESULT>'
24            passing OBJECT_VALUE as "COMPANY"
25        ) r
26  /
COLUMN_VALUE
<RESULT><NAME>ABC</NAME><DEPARTMENT_NAME>Paris</DEPARTMENT_NAME><ADDRESS>Rue de
nevers</ADDRESS></RESULT>
<RESULT><NAME>ABC</NAME><DEPARTMENT_NAME>London</DEPARTMENT_NAME><ADDRESS>Northa
mpton Square</ADDRESS></RESULT>This above step creates a document for all tags with a particular index and then we can apply a columns cause to get the results..
SQL>   with COMPANY_XML as
  2  (
  3    select XMLTYPE(
  4  '<COMPANY NAME="ABC">
  5     <DEPARTMENT_NAME>Paris</DEPARTMENT_NAME>
  6     <ADDRESS>Rue de nevers</ADDRESS>
  7     <DEPARTMENT_NAME>London</DEPARTMENT_NAME>
  8     <ADDRESS>Northampton Square</ADDRESS>
  9  </COMPANY>') as OBJECT_VALUE from dual
10  )
11  select R.*
12    from COMPANY_XML,
13         XMLTABLE
14         (
15            'for $COMP in $COMPANY/COMPANY
16               for $DEPT at $DEPTIDX in $COMP/DEPARTMENT_NAME
17                 return <RESULT>
18                         <NAME>{fn:data($COMP/@NAME)}</NAME>
19                         {
20                           $COMP/DEPARTMENT_NAME[$DEPTIDX],
21                           $COMP/ADDRESS[$DEPTIDX]
22                         }
23                       </RESULT>'
24            passing OBJECT_VALUE as "COMPANY"
25            columns
26            NAME            VARCHAR(10),
27            DEPARTMENT_NAME VARCHAR2(24),
28            ADDRESS         VARCHAR2(24)
29        ) r
30  /
NAME       DEPARTMENT_NAME          ADDRESS
ABC        Paris                    Rue de nevers
ABC        London                   Northampton Square
SQL>