Baseball XML to SQL query - optimize - sql-server

Question

source data looks comes from the following, freely available XML files describing major league baseball games.
http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/year_2013/month_04/day_09/gid_2013_04_09_atlmlb_miamlb_1/inning/
I have created a SQL Server table that contains a row for every GamePK/inning, with an XML column named PBP. Each file in the folder above becomes a row in this table. The query below is my attempt to parse the XML into a record set. It works but is very slow for a large number of rows, and very repetitive - seems like there should be a better way to do this without the UNION clause. Any help in improving/optimizing is appreciated
select
i.GamePK
,inn.value('#num', 'int') as inning
,itop.value('1', 'int') as IsTop
,itop.value('#num', 'int') as abNum
,itop.value('#batter', 'int') as batter
-- clip
,itoppit.value('#des', 'varchar(32)') as pitdesc
,itoppit.value('#id', 'int') as seq
,itoppit.value('#type', 'varchar(8)') as pittype
-- clip
from tblInnings i
cross apply PBP.nodes('/inning') as inn(inn)
cross apply inn.nodes('top/atbat') as itop(itop)
cross apply itop.nodes('pitch') as itoppit(itoppit)
union
select
i.GamePK
,inn.value('#num', 'int') as inning
,ibot.value('0', 'int') as IsTop
,ibot.value('#num', 'int') as abNum
,ibot.value('#batter', 'int') as batter
-- clip
,ibotpit.value('#des', 'varchar(32)') as pitdesc
,ibotpit.value('#id', 'int') as seq
,ibotpit.value('#type', 'varchar(8)') as pittype
--clip
from tblInnings i
cross apply PBP.nodes('/inning') as inn(inn)
cross apply inn.nodes('bottom/atbat') as ibot(ibot)
cross apply ibot.nodes('pitch') as ibotpit(ibotpit)

Answer 1

If you're using a recent version of SQL Server, there's a new column data type (XML).
You can apply xpath to it, making querying the column much easier.
Instead of trying to store the XML as a string in your DB, I'd suggest you actually store it as XML, and treat it as XML.
There is a learning curve. You'll need to be familiar with XPATH, but it's not rocket science.
an example:
SELECT Id, PartitionMonth, EmailAddress, AcquisitionCodeId, FieldValues.value('
declare namespace s="http://domain.com/FieldValues.xsd";
data(/s:FieldValues/s:item/#value)[1]', 'varchar(200)')
FROM Leads.Leads WITH (NOLOCK)
WHERE Id = 190708
Another example retrieving values by key:
SELECT r.EmailAddress, ar.Ip, ar.DateLog,
ar.FieldValues.value('
declare namespace s="http://domain.com/FieldValues.xsd";
data(/s:FieldValues/s:item[#key="First Name"]/#value)[1]', 'varchar(20)') FirstName,
ar.FieldValues.value('
declare namespace s="http://domain.com/FieldValues.xsd";
data(/s:FieldValues/s:item[#key="Last Name"]/#value)[1]', 'varchar(20)') LastName
FROM Records.Records r WITH (NOLOCK)
JOIN Records.AcquisitionRecords ar WITH (NOLOCK) ON r.Id = ar.Id
WHERE ar.AcquisitionCodeId IN (19, 21, 30, 34, 36)
AND ar.DateLog BETWEEN '1-mar-09' AND '31-mar-09'
A good place to get started on XML in SQL Server
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms189887(v=sql.90).aspx