non-random ramble

to_date

to_number

decode

all do what i needed. damn!

http://www.oracle-base.com/articles/9i/XMLDB9i.php#RegisterXMLSchema

http://www.cs.umb.edu/cs634/ora9idocs/appdev.920/a96620/xdb05obj.htm#1032574

Ok to get XML to work proper with oracle you have to install Oracle XDB :

http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/appdev.102/b14259/xdb02rep.htm#i1034529

http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/appdev.102/b14259/xdb01int.htm#sthref167

some mo
and then some

If you want to use schemas such as :

xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">

When you create the document factory you have to tell it to become namespace aware :

static final String JAXP_SCHEMA_LANGUAGE =
“http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/properties/schemaLanguage”;

static final String W3C_XML_SCHEMA =
“http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema”;
try {
factory.setAttribute(JAXP_SCHEMA_LANGUAGE, W3C_XML_SCHEMA);
}
catch (IllegalArgumentException x) {
// Happens if the parser does not support JAXP 1.2
throw new XMLValidationException(”Could not create validating XML Parser ” + x.getMessage(), x);
}

THis lets it understand, otherwise you get :

org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Document is invalid: no grammar found.
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Document root element “EClaim_Message”, must match DOCTYPE root “null”.

http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/xml/xmldb/Current/TWP_Mastering_XMLDB_Queries.pdf