title: convert oracle blob to xml type
body: <p>I have experience using MSSQL 2008 and I recently had to move from MSSQL to Oracle 10g.
  The people who designed the (Oracle) table, which has a column I need to extract data from, used a <code>BLOB</code> type column for the XML they need to store. </p>
  
  <p>In MSSQL you would have simply stored your XML string in an <code>XML</code> type or used a <code>VARCHAR(MAX)</code>. Assume a table <code>myTable</code> with a column called <code>myColumn</code> which is a <code>VARCHAR(MAX)</code> containing <code>&lt;ROOT&gt;&lt;a&gt;111&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/ROOT&gt;</code> If you wanted to convert the <code>VARCHAR(MAX)</code> type to an <code>XML</code> type you would simply write something like:</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-sql prettyprint-override"><code>SELECT CONVERT(XML, myColumn) FROM myTable
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>if you wanted, you could then use XQuery to get data from the converted column, like so:</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-sql prettyprint-override"><code>SELECT CONVERT(XML, myColumn).query('/ROOT/a')
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How would you accomplish the same thing in Oracle 10g if myColumn was a <code>BLOB</code>, without having to write a stored procedure but still making it reusable? The text in the BLOB is <code>UFT-8</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I would really appreciate your assistance, as I kind of need this in a hurry.</p>