in MS Sql there are data types that are not supported by delphi 7, the xml datatype is one example.
I wish to convert the XML datatype to Text datatype, so that i could handle it in delphi.
Is there a way to convert from xml to text?
A simple cast will suffice:
select cast(XMLCol as nvarchar(max)) as XMLCol
Or for non-unicode:
select cast(XMLCol as varchar(max)) as XMLCol
You can't convert explicitly to a 'text' data type.
I've added the as XMLCol
to ensure that the converted data has the the same name as the column. You needn't have this, of course.
EDIT:
A few links. You are encouraged to use nvarchar(max) instead of text
regardless. Microsoft have said they will be deprecating these types in future releases. nvarchar(max) ought to offer you 2GB:
http://www.petefreitag.com/item/734.cfm
http://www.teratrax.com/articles/varchar_max.html
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187752(v=SQL.90).aspx