Is it worth indexing an XML column in a SQL Server database?

Is it worth indexing an XML column in a SQL Server database?

Is it worth indexing an xml column in a SQL Server database? In some cases, yes. That’s why XML indexes are available. Keep in mind that SQL Server stores XML data as large binary objects (BLOBS).

How can I speed up XML query in SQL Server?

4 Answers

1. Use node/text() instead of just node for your xpaths.
2. Try never to use ../ in your xpath expressions, as it slows it down SIGNIFICANTLY.

What is XML index in SQL Server?

An XML index is an index type that is specifically built to handle indexing XML type columns. There are two different types of XML indexes, primary and secondary. A primary XML index stores and indexes all the parts of data in your chosen XML column.

When you should use index in SQL?

A SQL index is a quick lookup table for finding records users need to search frequently. An index is small, fast, and optimized for quick lookups. It is very useful for connecting the relational tables and searching large tables. Notice that not only creating a primary key creates a unique SQL index.

Why do we need index in SQL?

The primary reason indexes are built is to provide faster data access to the specific data your query is trying to retrieve. This could be either a clustered or non-clustered index. Without having an index SQL Server would need to read through all of the data in order to find the rows that satisfy the query.

How can I make index seek faster?

Index seek is the fastest index operation, shouldn’t take that long….The only ways I can think of to improve performance would be:

1. Update the query to return fewer rows/columns, if possible;
2. Defragment or rebuild the index;
3. Partition the index across multiple disks/servers.

Whats is the index of XML?

The primary XML index is a shredded and persisted representation of the XML BLOBs in the xml data type column. For each XML binary large object (BLOB) in the column, the index creates several rows of data. The number of rows in the index is approximately equal to the number of nodes in the XML binary large object.