Query to get XML output for hierarchical data using FOR XML PATH in SQL Server

Question

I have a table with columns NodeId, NodeName, ParentNodeId and I want to ouput entire table data in the form of Xml like the following using SQL query. I think FOR XML PATH mode in Sql server can be used to achieve this (I use SQL Server 2008) using recursion, but not sure how. Thanks in advance

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Nodes>
  <Node Id="1" Name="node1">
    <Node Id="11" Name="node11">
      <Node Id="111" Name="node111" />
      <Node Id="112" Name="node112" />
    </Node>
  </Node>
  <Node Id="2" Name="node2">
    <Node Id="21" Name="node21">
      <Node Id="211" Name="node211" />
      <Node Id="212" Name="node212" />
    </Node>
  </Node>
</Nodes>

Answer 1

I solved it using a stored procedure and a recursive function. code shown below. (actually I wanted this to generate a menu xml, so the code is shown for the menu.

    CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[usp_GetMenu]
    AS
    BEGIN
        SET NOCOUNT ON;

        SELECT  dbo.fnGetMenuItems(MenuId)
        FROM    dbo.Menu
        WHERE   ParentMenuId IS NULL
        FOR XML PATH('MenuItems')
    END
    GO

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fnGetMenuItems]
(
    @MenuId int
)
RETURNS XML
WITH RETURNS NULL ON NULL INPUT
AS
BEGIN

    RETURN 
    (
        SELECT  MenuId AS "@Id"
                , [Name] AS "@Name"
                , [URL] AS "@URL"
                , [Key] AS "@Key"
                , [dbo].[fnGetMenuItems](MenuId)
        FROM    dbo.Menu
        WHERE   ParentMenuId = @MenuId
        FOR XML PATH('MenuItem'),TYPE
    )

END
GO

Answer 2

This query will do it - however, it's not very clean in that you have to "manually" define the nesting and it won't just automatically scale to more levels deep....

SELECT 
    n.ID AS '@Id', 
    n.NAME AS '@Name',
    (SELECT 
        n2.ID AS '@Id', 
        n2.NAME AS '@Name',
        (SELECT 
            n3.ID AS '@Id', 
            n3.NAME AS '@Name'
         FROM 
            dbo.Nodes n3
         WHERE 
             n3.ParentNode = n2.ID
         FOR XML PATH('Node'), TYPE
        ) 
     FROM 
        dbo.Nodes n2
     WHERE 
         n2.ParentNode = n.ID
     FOR XML PATH('Node'), TYPE
    ) 
FROM 
    dbo.Nodes n
WHERE 
    n.ParentNode IS NULL
FOR XML PATH('Node'), ROOT('Nodes')

Output is:

<Nodes>
  <Node Id="1" Name="node1">
    <Node Id="11" Name="node11">
      <Node Id="111" Name="node111" />
      <Node Id="112" Name="node112" />
    </Node>
  </Node>
  <Node Id="2" Name="node2">
    <Node Id="21" Name="node21">
      <Node Id="211" Name="node211" />
      <Node Id="212" Name="node212" />
    </Node>
  </Node>
</Nodes>

I was hoping there would be a way to do this with a recursive CTE (Common Table Expression), but that didn't work out :-(