Are you using SQL 2005? If so, I would suggest you use the xml datatype rather than openXML.

declare @xml_hnd xml

set @xml_hnd='

<Root>

<Node id="1" />

...

Interesting. I've done a bunch more testing here and it seems the only time you need to prefix a literal string with N is when the literal string itself contains...

Yes it does return data but what will happen if a unicode character makes its way into one of the variables?

Imagine we have @var nvarchar(MAX) and it contains unicode...

I don't frequent these forums much, mostly because I don't have much to offer in the way of answers. I don't do a ton of SQL.

I do however lurk around...

Many thanks! That worked out very well. At first it was just returning NULL and I couldn't see why, then it dawned on me that if you don't set your...