How to rename an Oracle XMLTYPE node

Question

I have an XMLType in PL/SQL and I need to rename some of the nodes and some of the values. For example:

   
        foo&l         


        

Answer 1

Or, you could define an xsl stylesheet that will make the change and use dbms_xslprocessor to do your modifications.

Answer 2

One option is to use XMLTRANSFORM to rename a node. See also e.g. Rename nodes with XSLT.

with
xmldata as (select xmltype('<root>
  <fields>
    <a>foo</a>
    <b>bar</b>
  </fields>
</root>') val from dual),
stylesheet as (select '<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <!-- Identity transformation -->
  <xsl:template match="node()|@*">
    <xsl:copy>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>
    </xsl:copy>
  </xsl:template>
  <!-- Identity transformation overridden for element b -->
  <xsl:template match="b">
    <xsl:element name="c">
      <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>
    </xsl:element>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>' val from dual)
select xmltransform(x.val, s.val) from xmldata x, stylesheet s;

Output:

XMLTRANSFORM(X.VAL,S.VAL)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<root>
  <fields>
    <a>foo</a>
    <c>bar</c>
  </fields>
</root>