PL/SQL DBMS_XMLGEN.SETROWTAG

The DBMS_XMLGEN.SETROWTAG procedure in Oracle PL/SQL is used to set a custom name for the row tags in the XML output generated by the DBMS_XMLGEN package. By default, when you use DBMS_XMLGEN to convert the results of a SQL query to XML format, each row is enclosed in <ROW> tags. If you want to use a different tag name to represent each row in your XML output, you can use the SETROWTAG procedure to specify this custom tag name.

Syntax

Here’s the basic syntax for DBMS_XMLGEN.SETROWTAG:

DBMS_XMLGEN.SETROWTAG(ctx_handle IN NUMBER, rowtag IN VARCHAR2);

ctx_handle: This is the context handle returned by DBMS_XMLGEN.NEWCONTEXT when you initiated the XML generation process. It is used to identify the session of XML generation.
rowtag: This is the custom name you want to use for your row tags in the XML output.

Example

Here is an example showing how to use DBMS_XMLGEN.SETROWTAG to change the row tag name to <EMPLOYEE> in the XML output for a query on an employees table:

DECLARE
  ctx_handle NUMBER;
  xml_output CLOB;
BEGIN
  -- Create a context for the query
  ctx_handle := DBMS_XMLGEN.NEWCONTEXT('SELECT employee_id, first_name, last_name FROM employees');

  -- Set the custom row tag
  DBMS_XMLGEN.SETROWTAG(ctx_handle, 'EMPLOYEE');

  -- Get the XML result
  xml_output := DBMS_XMLGEN.GETXML(ctx_handle);

  -- Close the context
  DBMS_XMLGEN.CLOSECONTEXT(ctx_handle);

  -- Output the result
  DBMS_OUTPUT.PUT_LINE(xml_output);
END;

In this example, the XML output will have <EMPLOYEE> and </EMPLOYEE> tags surrounding the XML representation of each row fetched by the SQL query, instead of the default <ROW> tags.