This function returns the serialization of the current node. This is similar to the XPATH function 'serialize()', i.e. a text in XML syntax.
The function returns wide string.
This populates a table with XML data and then selects string representation of 'ename' element from the appropriate record.
create table TEST_XMLS (I integer primary key, XMLVAL XMLType);
insert into TEST_XMLS values (1, XMLType('<emp><empno>221</empno><ename>John</ename></emp>'));
insert into TEST_XMLS values (2, XMLType('<po><pono>331</pono><poname>PO_1</poname></po>'));
insert into TEST_XMLS values (3, XMLType('<oil-rig id="14a" water="0.413"/><oil-rig id="14b" water="0.402"/>'));
select e.XMLVAL.extract ('//ename').getCLobVal() as ENAME
from TEST_XMLS as e
where e.XMLVAL.existsNode('/emp/empno')
ENAME
NVARCHAR
_______________________________________________________________________________
<ename>John</ename>
1 Rows. -- 00000 msec.