Convert XML to Microsoft SQL Server

Upload a .xml file and get back a Microsoft SQL Server SQL script you can load straight into your database. Types are preserved rather than flattened to text. Free, no registration, up to 10MB.

Click to upload or drag and drop

CSV, Excel, SQLite, SQL, DBF (max 10 MB)

How your data is typed in Microsoft SQL Server

Generated from the converter's own Microsoft SQL Server type mapping — this is what it actually emits, not an example.

Your dataMicrosoft SQL Server type
Whole numberBIGINT
Decimal (money)DECIMAL(10,2)
Floating pointFLOAT
True / falseBIT
DateDATE
Date and timeDATETIME2
Short textNVARCHAR(255)
Long textNVARCHAR(MAX)
Binary dataVARBINARY(MAX)

Working from an .xml file

XML describes structure but not types, and nests arbitrarily deep, while a table does neither. The reader takes one specific slice of the document, and it is worth checking that the slice is the one you meant.

  • Only the direct children of the row element become columns. A grandchild such as <address><city> has no text of its own at that level, so it arrives as NULL - flatten one level before uploading.
  • Namespaces are reduced to local names, so <ns:order> and <order> are the same element here, and two elements differing only by prefix collide into one column.
  • Attributes are read first and child elements second, so where a row carries both an id attribute and an <id> child, the child's value is what lands in the column.
  • No XSD or DTD is consulted. Every value goes through the same inference a CSV gets, with the same refusal to guess at an ambiguous date.

Which SQL Server this runs on

Microsoft SQL Server is the full product name, and it covers a wide range of places to put a database: Express on a laptop, a Developer instance, a Linux container, a managed Azure SQL database. The script was written not to care which of them it lands in.

  • There is no CREATE DATABASE, no USE, and no filegroup or collation clause anywhere in the file, so nothing in it can be refused by an edition that forbids those. Which database it populates is decided by your client's connection.
  • No schema is named either, so the tables land in the default schema of whichever login runs the script - dbo for most logins. Moving them elsewhere afterwards is an ALTER SCHEMA ... TRANSFER.
  • The primary key is emitted as an unnamed constraint, which the server materialises as a clustered index under a name it invents. Nothing else is indexed, so any index the source carried has to be rebuilt by hand.

Reading XML

  • The row element is whichever child repeats — no configuration needed.
  • Attributes become columns alongside child elements, so nothing on the row itself is left behind. What a table cannot hold is depth: only the row element and its immediate children are read, so nested structures need flattening by one level first.
  • Empty and self-closing elements become NULL.

Writing Microsoft SQL Server

  • String literals carry the N prefix, so non-ASCII text survives whatever collation the database uses.
  • Timestamps become DATETIME2. T-SQL’s TIMESTAMP is a row-version counter, not a point in time.
  • Identity columns are wrapped in SET IDENTITY_INSERT so explicit key values load.
  • Statements are separated with GO in batches.

What you get

A ZIP containing dump.sql, plus a README with the exact command to load it. If anything about your data needed a judgement call, a _warnings.txt explains it.

Load this dump into SQL Server:

  sqlcmd -S HOST -U USER -P PASSWORD -d DATABASE -i dump.sql

Notes:

  - Text columns are NVARCHAR and literals carry the N prefix, so
    non-ASCII data survives regardless of database collation.
  - Timestamps are DATETIME2. T-SQL's TIMESTAMP type is a row
    version, not a point in time.

Questions

Is converting XML to Microsoft SQL Server free?
Yes. Files up to 10MB convert free with no account. There is a limit of five conversions per day per IP address.
Will my XML data keep its types in Microsoft SQL Server?
Yes — that is the point. Whole numbers, decimals, dates and booleans are mapped to real Microsoft SQL Server types rather than everything becoming text. The mapping table above shows exactly what you get.
Do you store my file?
No. The file is written to a temporary directory, converted, and the directory is deleted as soon as your download has been sent.

This conversion, under other names

Convert XML to something else

Convert something else to Microsoft SQL Server