Select values from XML field in SQL Server 2008

Question

Just looking at my XML field, my rows look like this:

<person><firstName>Jon</firstName><lastName>Johnson</lastName></person>
<person><firstName>Kathy</firstName><lastName>Carter</lastName></person>
<person><firstName>Bob</firstName><lastName>Burns</lastName></person>

Note that these are three rows in my table.

I'd like to return a SQL result as a table as in

Jon  | Johnson
Kathy| Carter
Bob  | Burns

What query will accomplish this?

Answer 1

Given that the XML field is named 'xmlField'...

SELECT 
[xmlField].value('(/person//firstName/node())[1]', 'nvarchar(max)') as FirstName,
[xmlField].value('(/person//lastName/node())[1]', 'nvarchar(max)') as LastName
FROM [myTable]