Suggestion on XML syntax

[mike bond]

I don't know if this is the best place to suggest this, if not, maybe you all can point me in the right direction.

I suggest using a notation to extract values from XML in SQL similar to other programing languages use of arrays. An example would be "Select Document[//Article/Title] from Library", Using the square brackets [] to indicate the xpath value to extract from the Document field. Likewise angle brackets <> can be used in place of the square brackets, as angle brackets <> reference xml. Using the above example becomes "Select Document<//Article/Title> from Library". This syntax is more concise and is similar to the use of square brackets to extract elements from arrays such as array[2].

SELECT EXTRACTVALUE(address, '//City') FROM Customer;
--Becomes--
SELECT address[//City] FROM Customer;
--or--
SELECT address<//City> FROM Customer;