I am working on the database dump of this exact stack exchange section. While I am working on it I have encountered one issue that I am currently unable to solve.
In the XML File Posts.xml the contents look like this
There are of course multiple rows, but that's how one looks like. There's already a Tags.xml file given in the dump, which makes it even more obvious that the "Tags" attribute in that picture is in fact supposed to be its separate table (many to many).
So right now I am trying to figure out a way how to extract the tags. Here's what I tried to do:
CREATE TABLE #TestingIdea (
Id int PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY (1,1),
PostId int NULL,
Tag nvarchar (MAX) NULL
)
GO
↑ The table I created to test out my code. I have already filled it with the Tags and PostIds
SELECT T1.PostId,
S.SplitTag
FROM (
SELECT T.PostId,
cast('<X>'+ REPLACE(T.Tag,'>','</X><X>') + '</X>' as XML) AS NewTag
FROM #TestingIdea AS T
) AS T1
CROSS APPLY (
SELECT tData.value('.','nvarchar(30)') SplitTag
FROM T1.NewTag.nodes('X') AS T(tData)
) AS S
GO
Yet this code returns this error
XML parsing: line 1, character 37, illegal qualified name character
After googling this error (including here), whatever people had (like extra " marks or different CHAR sets) I didn't have. So I am kind of stuck. Maybe I missed something extremely obvious from previous answers I found T_T In any case I appreciate any help and advice on how to tackle this. It's the last table I have yet to normalize.
Small Sample Data From the XML File https://pastebin.com/AW0Z8Be2
For anyone interested in the program I use to view XML files (so it's much easier to read like in that picture above). It's called FOXE XML Reader (Free XML Editor – First Object)
Best Answer
Does something like this satisfy the resultset?
Table & Data
Query
Result