Flattened Documents Model
For users who simply need access to the entirety of their data, flattening the data into a single table is the best option. The add-in will use streaming and only parses the data once per query in this mode.
Joining Object Arrays into a Single Table
With DataModel set to "FlattenedDocuments", the add-in returns a separate table for each object array, but implicitly JOINed to the parent table. Any nested sibling XPath values (child paths at the same height) will be treated as a SQL CROSS JOIN.
Example
Below is a sample query and the results, based on the sample document in Raw Data and parsing based on the XPaths /root/people, /root/people/vehicles, and /root/people/vehicles/maintenance. This implicitly JOINs the people element with the vehicles element and implicitly JOINs the vehicles element with the maintenance element.
Connection String
Use the following connection string to query the Raw Data in this example.
URI=C:\people.txt;Format=XML;DataModel=FlattenedDocuments;XPath='/root/people;/root/people/vehicles;/root/people/vehicles/maintenance;'
Query
The following query drills into the nested elements in each people element. Since the XPath property included the vehicles node, you can query an element of a vehicle explicitly.
SELECT
[personal.age] AS age,
[personal.gender] AS gender,
[personal.name.first] AS name_first,
[personal.name.last] AS name_last,
[source],
[type],
[model],
[insurance.company] AS ins_company,
[insurance.policy_num] AS ins_policy_num,
[date] AS maint_date,
[desc] AS maint_desc
FROM
[people]
Results
With horizontal and vertical flattening based on the described paths, each vehicle element is implicitly JOINed to its parent people element and each maintenance element is implicitly JOINed to its parent vehicle element.
age | gender | first_name | last_name | source | type | model | ins_company | ins_policy_num | maint_date | maint_desc | |
20 | M | John | Doe | internet | car | Honda Civic | ABC Insurance | 12345 | 2017-07-17 | oil change | |
20 | M | John | Doe | internet | car | Honda Civic | ABC Insurance | 12345 | 2018-01-03 | new tires | |
20 | M | John | Doe | internet | truck | Dodge Ram | ABC Insurance | 12345 | 2017-08-27 | new tires | |
20 | M | John | Doe | internet | truck | Dodge Ram | ABC Insurance | 12345 | 2018-01-08 | oil change | |
24 | F | Jane | Roberts | phone | car | Toyota Camry | Car Insurance | 98765 | 2017-05-11 | tires rotated | |
24 | F | Jane | Roberts | phone | car | Toyota Camry | Car Insurance | 98765 | 2017-11-03 | oil change | |
24 | F | Jane | Roberts | phone | car | Honda Accord | Car Insurance | 98765 | 2017-10-07 | new air filter | |
24 | F | Jane | Roberts | phone | car | Honda Accord | Car Insurance | 98765 | 2018-01-13 | new brakes |
See Also
- Automatic Schema Discovery: Configure the columns reported in the table schemas.
- Free-Form Queries: Use dot notation to select nested data.
- Vertical Flattening: Query nested data as separate tables.
- XML Functions and JSON Functions: Manipulate the data returned to perform client-side aggregation and transformations.