ODP.NET supports XML data natively in the database, through Oracle XML DB.

ODP.NET:

• Stores XML data natively in Oracle Database as XMLType.

• Accesses relational and object-relational data as XML data from Oracle Database to a Microsoft .NET environment, and processes the XML using Microsoft .NET framework.

• Saves changes to the database server using XML data.

• Provides the following XML-specific classes:

  • OracleXmlType

  • OracleXmlStream

  • OracleXmlQueryProperties

  • OracleXmlSaveProperties

• Enhances classes OracleCommand, OracleConnection, and OracleDataReader.

An example illustrates passing XMLType data from the database to .NET

//Create OracleCommand and query XMLType 
OracleCommand xmlCmd = new OracleCommand(); 
poCmd.CommandText = "SELECT po FROM po_tab";
poCmd.Connection = conn;
// Execute OracleCommand and output XML results to an OracleDataReader 
OracleDataReader poReader = poCmd.ExecuteReader(); 
// ODP.NET native XML data type object from Oracle XML DB 
OracleXmlType poXml; 
string str = ""; //read XML results 
while (poReader.Read()) 
{ 
  // Return OracleXmlType object of the specified XmlType column 
  poXml = poReader.GetOracleXmlType(0);     
  // Concatenate output for all the records 
  str = str + poXml.Value; 
} //Output XML results to the screen 
Console.WriteLine(str);