XML views, which ship in SQL Server 2000 and the SQL Server 2000 Web releases (SQLXML), conveniently treat the data stored in your SQL Server database as if it were part of a virtual XML document. In "Defining XML Views," December 2002, InstantDoc ID 27106, I described how to create an annotated XML Schema Definition (XSD) schema (sometimes called a mapping schema) to build an XML view. These views are useful because they execute hierarchical XPath queries against your relational data. They accomplish this feat by combining the data in the mapping schema with an XPath query to produce a SQL query, which in turn generates the XML result.

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