Yeah, proper tool. XML in XML that XML XML xml to xml in XML and xmls xml xml. Now how do you propose to use XSLT in this case? Write a complicated and fragile template that transforms the XML file into a bunch of INSERT statements (most likely failing to decode and escape the values properly) that you then force the database to parse and execute? Sounds very xmlish to me. XSLT also known as "I was lazy to design a sensible syntax and write a parser so let's force the developers to give us the syntax tree serialized in a format we already have a parser for" is seldom the right tool, but in this case it's simply ... not a good option.