XMLtable with Oracle 11g

Question

Here is a sample table:

create table xmltemp (mydoc xmltype)

Here is a small xml doc for it:

insert into xmltemp values (
x         


        

Answer 1

Try this:

select      X.COUNTRYNAME, Y.STATENAME
from        XMLTEMP
           ,xmltable('/countries/country'
                     passing MYDOC
                     columns COUNTRYNAME varchar2(20) path './name', 
                             STATES xmltype path './states') X,
            xmltable('/states/state/name' passing X.STATES 
                    columns STATENAME varchar2(20) path '.') (+) Y

Because you have multiple states you should join to another xml table. As some countries have no states then it needs to be a left outer join. I'm using the old method of (+) as I'm trying this on 10g and it seems there's a problem using left outer join in 10g but apparently it should be fine in 11g.