Thanks for the response, much appreciated. I was able to get that out also, but I can't get out the single value 'English' from ns5:language I'm trying variations of this select samplexml.xml.extract('n1:submit/requestHeader/ns5:language','xmlns:n1="ca/j oe/test/autotype/submitrequest" requestHeader xmlns = "ca/joe/test/autotype/submitrequest" xmlns:ns5 ="ca/joe/test/autotype/testcommonrequest"').getStringVal() omdata from (select xmltype('<n1:submit xmlns:n1 ="ca/joe/test/autotype/submitrequest" xmlns:xsi = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance";> <requestHeader xmlns = "ca/joe/test/autotype/submitrequest"> <ns1:customerInteractionType xmlns:ns1 = "ca/joe/test/autotype/testcommonrequest">ContactCentre</ns1:customerInteract ionType> <ns2:serviceRequestUserId xmlns:ns2 = "ca/joe/test/autotype/testcommonrequest">N296922</ns2:serviceRequestUserId> <ns3:serviceConsumer xmlns:ns3 = "ca/joe/test/autotype/testcommonrequest">Odorrmax</ns3:serviceConsumer> <ns4:serviceRequestTimestamp xmlns:ns4 ="ca/joe/test/autotype/testcommonrequest">2009-10-29T16:13:26.524-04:00</ns4 :serviceRequestTimestamp> <ns5:language xmlns:ns5 ="ca/joe/test/autotype/testcommonrequest">English</ns5:language> <ns6:referenceID xmlns:ns6 ="ca/joe/test/autotype/testcommonrequest">A26P83Z3</ns6:referenceID> </requestHeader> </n1:submit>') xml from dual) samplexml -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ian Cary Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 9:51 AM To: ganstadba@xxxxxxxxxxx Cc: mark-clist@xxxxxxxxxx; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: valid node xmlparser oracle 10g Hi, I loaded the xml you sent into a 10g database here and ran; select extract(x.xml_data,'/n1:submit','xmlns:n1="ca/joe/test/autotype/submitreques t" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance') omdata from test_xml x -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l