Any Linux SQL Server client (command line) which supports XML formatting?

Question

I have to launch some batch queries from a Red Hat Server against SQL Server 2005 and I need to format the results in an XML file. I have installed msodbcsql and unixODBC in my red hat server and I can access the SQL Server via isql. The driver works well and I can launch SQL Server in batch mode and save the results to a file.

However isql only supports to use a delimiter character (-d option) or html format (-w option). I need the output in XML format tagging each column.

Any help? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

SQL Server 2005 was the first version which supported native XML queries.

Try a query like this:

SELECT 'attr' AS [@SomeAttribute]
      ,'test' AS SomeElement 
FOR XML PATH('testPath'),ROOT('testRoot');

The result should be this:

<testRoot>
  <testPath SomeAttribute="attr">
    <SomeElement>test</SomeElement>
  </testPath>
</testRoot>

If this works, it should be easy to get any XML from SQL Server...

From your question I take, that your tool can deal with markups using the -w option. I'd try this...