Updating an XML Mode

Question

I've been studying the use of XML data in Oracle. So far I've been successful in passing xml data from my .NET application and using CLOBS to pass the data. I experimented with various functions such as DBMS_XMLSave...etc. So far, I'm loving it. I can update different tables from one row of a passed XML string inside the CLOB with the unique ID.
However, I hit a bit of a head scratcher. This time, I want to INSERT a new client with a patient id. Now, on the MVC .NET client side, I could easily make a quick call to a small function and return the next available ID to be used as the patient_id and store it in the collection, serialize the xml, and then pass all the data as a clob. Thus my XML will be like this:
<ROWSET>
<ROW>
<PATIENT_ID>5<PATIENT_ID>
<PATIENT_NAME>BOB<PATIENT_NAME>
<ROW>
<ROWSET>
Not a problem, but the question is this - why should I make TWO trips and just do everything at once on the database. So I sent the same data to the procedure but PATIENT_ID is null for the new patient. My plan was to do this:
PROCEDURE INSERT_NEW_PATIENT(paramPatientInfo IN CLOB)
IS
rowcnt NUMERIC;
p_clientid NUMBER;
xmlclob_patientinfo xmltype;
final_patientinfo xmltype;
clob_patientinfo clob;
BEGIN
-- convert the clob to a xml type
xmlclob_patientinfo := XMLTYPE.createXML(paramPatientInfo);
-- get the next available unique id
select H157_CLIENTS_SEQ.Nextval into p_clientid from dual;
-- assign the next unique id into the xmlclob_patientinfo xmltype "string" into final_patientinfo
select updatexml((xmlclob_patientinfo), 'ROWS/ROW/PATIENT_ID/text()', p_clientid ) into final_patientinfo from dual;
-- convert back to a clob
clob_patientinfo := final_patientinfo.getClobVal();
-- begin saving the data to the tables using the new clob_patientinfo as a parameter...
insctx := dbms_xmlsave.newcontext ('PATIENTS_TABLE');
....and so on - this part is not a problem.
So the question is am I doing the right thing in terms of using updatexml(......?

Answer 1

user13573273 wrote:
I've been studying the use of XML data in Oracle. So far I've been successful in passing xml data from my .NET application and using CLOBS to pass the data. I experimented with various functions such as DBMS_XMLSave...etc. So far, I'm loving it. I can update different tables from one row of a passed XML string inside the CLOB with the unique ID.
However, I hit a bit of a head scratcher. This time, I want to INSERT a new client with a patient id. Now, on the MVC .NET client side, I could easily make a quick call to a small function and return the next available ID to be used as the patient_id and store it in the collection, serialize the xml, and then pass all the data as a clob. Thus my XML will be like this:
<ROWSET>
<ROW>
<PATIENT_ID>5<PATIENT_ID>
<PATIENT_NAME>BOB<PATIENT_NAME>
<ROW>
<ROWSET>
Not a problem, but the question is this - why should I make TWO trips and just do everything at once on the database. So I sent the same data to the procedure but PATIENT_ID is null for the new patient. My plan was to do this:
PROCEDURE INSERT_NEW_PATIENT(paramPatientInfo IN CLOB)
IS
rowcnt NUMERIC;
p_clientid NUMBER;
xmlclob_patientinfo xmltype;
final_patientinfo xmltype;
clob_patientinfo clob;
BEGIN
-- convert the clob to a xml type
xmlclob_patientinfo := XMLTYPE.createXML(paramPatientInfo);
-- get the next available unique id
select H157_CLIENTS_SEQ.Nextval into p_clientid from dual;
-- assign the next unique id into the xmlclob_patientinfo xmltype "string" into final_patientinfo
select updatexml((xmlclob_patientinfo), 'ROWS/ROW/PATIENT_ID/text()', p_clientid ) into final_patientinfo from dual;
-- convert back to a clob
clob_patientinfo := final_patientinfo.getClobVal();
-- begin saving the data to the tables using the new clob_patientinfo as a parameter...
insctx := dbms_xmlsave.newcontext ('PATIENTS_TABLE');
....and so on - this part is not a problem.
So the question is am I doing the right thing in terms of using updatexml(......?no.
When your only tool is a hammer, all problems are viewed as nails.
While a hammer is a GREAT tool, it is suboptimal to divide 1 board into 2 pieces
Using XML to interface to Oracle RDBMS does NOT scale.