A great example of how one could use the Oracle XMLDB functionality in a unforeseen way in your relational world, is being demonstrated by Laurent Schneider in his article “How do i store the counts of all tables…”
Here, Laurent demonstrates the alternative use of XML functions and packages to solve intriguing and demanding queries. Have a look yourself at Laurent’s site at http://laurentschneider.com
Another small addition…
Apparently I overlooked the XML items filed under “csv format with select *“, but luckily Tom Kyte re-directed my attention to it…
As said, Cool stuff
FYI, I’ve updated the solution on the SQL Snippets page that Leon and Marco refer to above (http://www.sqlsnippets.com/en/topic-11785.html). The old solution used some convoluted REGEXP_REPLACE logic. The new one uses a more elegant approach involving EXTRACT and LTRIM that OTN user “michaels” suggested at http://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=502349&start=0&tstart=0.
Great site by the way. Lot’s of interesting idea’s.
Thanks for the tip, I found it (http://www.sqlsnippets.com/en/topic-11785.html). Laurent spoke about the possibility during Oracle Open World 2006. It’s great to see a working example.
Marco,
I recently found this site: http://www.sqlsnippets.com. Joe Fuda shows some interesting usages of the XML functions. I found the usage of the xmlagg function to convert rows to strings exceptionally useful.
Leon