Extract XML header information into SQL server - sql-server

Question

My process involves getting a large XML file on a daily basis.
I have developed an SSIS package (2008 r2) which first gets rid of the multiple namespaces via a XSLT and then imports data into 40 tables (due to its complexity) by using the XML source object.
Here is the watered down version of a test xml file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<s:Test xmlns:s="http://###.##.com/xml"
<sequence>62</sequence>
<generated>2015-04-28T00:59:38</generated>
<report_date>2015-04-27</report_date>
<orders>
<order>
</order>
</orders>
My question is: The XML source imports all the Orders with its nested attributes. How do I extract the 'report_date' and 'generated' from the header?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks
SD

Answer 1

You can use XML method value() passing proper XPath/XQuery expression as parameter. For demo, consider the following table and data :
CREATE TABLE MyTable (id int, MyXmlColumn XML)
DECLARE #data XML = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<s:Test xmlns:s="http://###.##.com/xml">
<sequence>62</sequence>
<generated>2015-04-28T00:59:38</generated>
<report_date>2015-04-27</report_date>
<orders>
<order>
</order>
</orders>
</s:Test>'
INSERT INTO Mytable VALUES(1,#data)
You can use the following query to get generated and report_date data :
SELECT
t.MyXmlColumn.value('(/*/generated)[1]','datetime') as generated
, t.MyXmlColumn.value('(/*/report_date)[1]','date') as report_date
FROM Mytable t
SQL Fiddle Demo
output :
generated report_date
----------------------- -----------
2015-04-28 00:59:38.000 2015-04-27