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7.14.1.4 xmlforest

xmlforest(content [AS name] [, ...])

The xmlforest expression produces an XML forest (sequence) of elements using the given names and content.

Examples:

SELECT xmlforest('abc' AS foo, 123 AS bar);

          xmlforest
------------------------------
 <foo>abc</foo><bar>123</bar>

SELECT xmlforest(table_name, column_name)
FROM information_schema.columns
WHERE table_schema = 'pg_catalog';

                                         xmlforest
--------------------------------------------------
 <table_name>pg_authid</table_name><column_name>rolname</
  column_name>
 <table_name>pg_authid</table_name><column_name>rolsuper</
  column_name>
 ...

As seen in the second example, the element name can be omitted if the content value is a column reference, in which case the column name is used by default. Otherwise, a name must be specified.

Element names that are not valid XML names are escaped as shown for xmlelement above. Similarly, content data is escaped to make valid XML content, unless it is already of type xml.

Note that XML forests are not valid XML documents if they consist of more than one element, so it might be useful to wrap xmlforest expressions in xmlelement.