I have a non-normal field containing multiple values because it is Xml data that wasn\'t intended to be queried, until now. Can MySQL split this xml column into multiple row
No. You must solve this just like other mysql split column problems.
I.e. Specifically based on this answer
DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS STRSPLIT;
DELIMITER $$
CREATE FUNCTION STRSPLIT($Str VARCHAR(20000), $delim VARCHAR(12), $pos INTEGER)
RETURNS VARCHAR(20000)
BEGIN
DECLARE output VARCHAR(20000);
SET output = REPLACE(SUBSTRING(SUBSTRING_INDEX($Str, $delim, $pos)
, LENGTH(SUBSTRING_INDEX($Str, $delim, $pos - 1)) + 1)
, $delim
, '');
IF output = ''
THEN SET output = null;
END IF;
RETURN output;
END $$
You can iterate through the values like so
DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS GetNameValues $$
CREATE PROCEDURE GetNameValues()
BEGIN
DECLARE i INTEGER;
DROP TEMPORARY TABLE IF EXISTS TempList;
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE TempList(
`Name` VARCHAR(256) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL,
`ValueList` VARCHAR(20000) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL
);
DROP TEMPORARY TABLE IF EXISTS Result;
CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE Result(
`Name` VARCHAR(256) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL,
`Value` VARCHAR(128) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL
);
INSERT INTO
TempList
SELECT
I.`Name`,
ExtractValue(Xml,'/Xml/Values/Value') AS ValueList
FROM
Item AS I
WHERE
I.TypeID = 'A'
;
SET i = 1;
REPEAT
INSERT INTO
Result
SELECT
`Name`,
CAST(STRSPLIT(ValueList, ' ', i) AS CHAR(128)) AS Value
FROM
TempList
WHERE
CAST(STRSPLIT(ValueList, ' ', i) AS CHAR(128)) IS NOT NULL
;
SET i = i + 1;
UNTIL ROW_COUNT() = 0
END REPEAT;
SELECT * FROM Result ORDER BY `Name`;
END $$
DELIMITER ;
CALL GetNameValues();
Hope this helps someone one day.