Oracle XML Queries and Namespaces

Oracle XML functions have trouble dealing with namespaces. It seems the best way it to simply strip them out but if you can't, you might try and use the optional namespace argument in many of the functions. Trouble is that Oracle's documentation doesn't actually explain what the syntax is.

The answer comes from Flavio Casetta at his oraclequirks blog:

select 
     extractValue(content,'/path/here','xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"') contentname 
   from 
     table