XML and Internet Support Overview

Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 introduces new features that support XML functionality. The combination of these features makes SQL Server 2000 an XML-enabled database server. These new features include:

• The ability to access SQL Server using HTTP.
  
  
• Support for XDR (XML-Data Reduced) schemas and the ability to specify XPath queries against these schemas.
  
  
• The ability to retrieve and write XML data:
  • Retrieve XML data using the SELECT statement and the FOR XML clause.
    
    
  • Write XML data using OPENXML rowset provider.
    
    
  • Retrieve XML data using the XPath query language.
• Enhancements to the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 OLE DB provider (SQLOLEDB) that allow XML documents to be set as command text and to return result sets as a stream.

For the latest updates relating to SQL Server support for XML, see the XML Developer Center on MSDN® at Microsoft Web site.

Note  The Msxml2.dll is installed with SQL Server 2000, but additional tools are not installed. For example, Xmlinst.exe, the tool used to configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use MSXML2, is not installed. The full MSXML2 package must be installed to obtain this functionality. MSXML2 can be downloaded from the XML Developer Center on MSDN at Microsoft Web site.

Getting Started with XML

To use the XML functionality that Microsoft SQL Server 2000 provides, you must have a working knowledge of XML, URL syntax, and HTTP methods. You should also be familiar with these terms:

XML document

Is a document that contains XML elements and attributes.

Document Type Definition (DTD)

Defines the elements and attributes that can be used in an XML document.

Style sheet

Describes the way data is to be formatted or displayed. The Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSL) is the language that is commonly used with XML documents.

Form

Is a structured document used to collect and submit data for processing.

Template

A concept introduced in SQL Server 2000, a template is a valid XML document containing one or more SQL statements. The template files are used to specify queries (SQL and XPath queries). Instead of specifying queries in the URL, template files containing the queries are specified in the URL.

Virtual root

A concept introduced by Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS), the virtual root is usually administered as part of IIS.

See Also

Using IIS Virtual Directory Management for SQL Server Utility

Accessing SQL Server Using HTTP

Creating XML Views Using Annotated XDR Schemas

Using XPath Queries

Retrieving and Writing XML Data