Thanks David for your quick response. My original objective was to get the value of a particular node in xml which is stored as text datatype in the table. For example : <?xml version="1.0"?> -<settings>-<F999><amperage>16</amperage><amperagesteps/></F9999></settings> I want to extract the value of amperage as '16'. Like that I may have many nodes in xml want to get the report to show them in different columns. I used to do this with oracle using xml functions provided. Trying to figure out same in postgres. Thanks again for your help. -- View this message in context: http://postgresql.1045698.n5.nabble.com/xpath-functionerror-tp5793724p5793740.html Sent from the PostgreSQL - general mailing list archive at Nabble.com. -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general