Convert XML to T-SQL

Upload a .xml file and get back a T-SQL 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 T-SQL

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

Your dataT-SQL 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.

The T-SQL the script actually uses

T-SQL is the language rather than the product, and it is exactly where a generic ANSI SQL script fails against SQL Server. Two of those differences are why this target has a dialect of its own instead of reusing the shared one.

  • Date and timestamp values are written as ordinary quoted strings. The ANSI typed literal - the word DATE in front of a quoted date - is not T-SQL, and the server rejects it, which on its own is enough to make a portable script fail to load.
  • GO is not a statement in the language at all. sqlcmd, SSMS and Azure Data Studio read it as a batch separator and the server never sees it, so a driver handed the whole file as one string chokes on it: run the file through one of those clients, or split the text on its GO lines and send the pieces in order down the same connection.
  • Rows are written 500 to a statement, comfortably under the 1000-row ceiling T-SQL puts on a single VALUES list. That ceiling is what makes a script built around one statement per table fail on any table worth converting.

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 T-SQL

  • 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 T-SQL 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 T-SQL?
Yes — that is the point. Whole numbers, decimals, dates and booleans are mapped to real T-SQL 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 T-SQL