How do I split an xml variable using xquery? - sql-server

Question

I have a scalar xml variable:
DECLARED #XML xml =
'<rows>
<row>
<column1 attrib="" />
<column2 attrib="" />
</row>
<!-- ... -->
</rows>';
I would like to split the data so that each row's xml is assigned to a new record in a table:
Id | ... | XML
1 | | '<row><column1 attrib="" /><column2 attrib="" /></row>'
2 | | etc.
3 | | etc.
I haven't quite grasped xquery so I'm having trouble writing an insert statement that does what I want.
INSERT into MyTable( [XML])
SELECT #XML.query('row')
Now I know something is happening but it appears rather than doing what I intended and inserting multiple new records it is inserting a single record with an empty string into the [XML] column.
What am I not getting?
Clarification
I am not trying to get the inner text, subelements or attributes from each row using value(...). I am trying to capture the entire <row> element and save it to a column of type xml
I've experimented with nodes(...) and come up with:
INSERT into MyTable([XML])
SELECT C.query('*')
FROM #XML.nodes('rows/row') T(C)
Which is closer to what I want but the results don't include the outer <row> tag, just the <column*> elements it contains.

Answer 1

You need to use .nodes(...) to project each <row .../> as a row and the extract the attributes of interest using .value(...). Something like:
insert into MyTable(XML)
select x.value('text()', 'nvarchar(max)') as XML
from #XML.nodes(N'/rows/row') t(x);
text() will select the inner text of each <row .../>. You should use the appropriate expression (eg. node() or #attribute etc, see XPath examples), depending on what you want from the row (your example does not make it clear at all, with all those empty elements...).

Answer 2

T-SQL Script:
SET ANSI_WARNINGS ON;
DECLARE #x XML =
'<rows>
<row Atr1="11" />
<row Atr1="22" Atr2="B" />
<row Atr1="33" Atr2="C" />
</rows>';
DECLARE #Table TABLE(Id INT NOT NULL, [XMLColumn] XML NOT NULL);
INSERT #Table (Id, XMLColumn)
SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY ##SPID) AS Id,
a.b.query('.') AS [XML]
FROM #x.nodes('//rows/row') AS a(b);
SELECT *
FROM #Table t;
Results:
Id XMLColumn
-- --------------------------
1 <row Atr1="11" />
2 <row Atr1="22" Atr2="B" />
3 <row Atr1="33" Atr2="C" />