This article describes how to use the clause of an external table to load XML fragments from XML documents in Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2). - Setup - External Table (XMLTAG) : Single Tag - External Table (XMLTAG) : Multiple Tags Related articles. - External Tables : All Articles Create a file called "/tmp/test1.xml" with the following contents. Create a directory object to access the file. Create an external table using the clause, which in this case indicates we want to return XML fragments with as a tag name. We can see the XML fragments are being read correctly with the following query. We can present it as relational columns using the operator. Create an external table using the clause, which indicates we want to return XML fragments with , or as a tag name. We can see the XML fragments are being read correctly with the following query. Since each fragment is treated separately it is presented as a separate row, and there is no relationship between the fragments. For more information see: - XMLTAG - External Tables : All Articles Hope this helps. Regards Tim...