We're having our lunch break having just finished up talking about XML as database type in SQL Server 2005. A few notes for everybody.
After the lecture, we got into a dicussion about when should you have XML in the database. Michael Rys, one of the Program Managers for XML and SQL Server (as well as an XQuery Working Group member) pointed us at this whitepaper -- XML Options in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 -- from Microsoft on the topic. There's also the slightly older but none the less useful XML Best Practices for Microsoft SQL Server 2005. There's also my presentation from Boston's Code Camp II on SQLCLR and XML that has usable demos.
We also talked briefly XQuery support “on the client side“ and that it won't be part of System.Xml v 2.0. However, we did talk about the .NET port of Saxon, homed at SaxonDotNet.
Oh by the way, the length limit on path names in FOR XML PATH queries is 128 characters, not the ~250 I first recalled. Sorry about that.
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The good news is that ADO.NET "just works" inside SQLCLR, so in order to get started you can leverage all your existing knowledge of ADO.NET.