OPENXML can be utilized whenever a rowset provider is necessary, such as a table or view. This includes SELECT, SELECT INTO, and OPENROWSET. This is accomplished in memory by making the XML document appear as a relational rowset. In doing so, the results become a data provider with the capability of writing XML data to database tables.
Without the WITH clause in OPENXML, the rowset is returned in the edge table format, so-called because every edge of the XML tree maps to a rowset row. It is possible to obtain the data type of an element/attribute, node types, namespaces, and other values. In essence, wherever you would use an XML parser to obtain document information, you can use an edge table.
Metaproperties associated with OPENXML are attributes that describe the properties of an XML item, regardless of whether it is an element, an attribute, or any other node. These properties exist and are provided by OPENXML even though they are not present in the XML document text.
