Tim Peters introduces us to shredding multi-level XML:
The below XML has data nested in different levels that requires the nodes method to join them together. The nodes method accepts a XML string and returns a rowset. That rowset can then be used with CROSS APPLY to effectively link your way down.
nodes (XQuery) as Table(Column)
The tabular format I need requires data from 3 different levels of this XML gob and I need to wade through 5 “tables” to get there.
Shredding XML is something you occasionally need to do.