SQL Server in version 2005 also started to feature extended support for XML data inside the database engine, although some basic support was already included in version 2000. The support starts by generating XML data from tabular results. You can use the FOR XML clause of the SELECT statement for this task.
The first option for creating XML from a query result is the RAW option. The XML created is quite close to the relational (tabular) presentation of the data. In raw mode, every row from returned rowsets converts to a single element named row, and columns translate to the attributes of this element.
The FOR XML AUTO option gives you nice XML documents with nested elements, and it is not complicated to use. In auto ...
