Why do you need TYPE() function to determine a field type? You can use DISPLAY STRUCTURE for that. Also, a field cannot have type 'U' so you obviously using TYPE() function incorrectly.

>I have an XML document that has a schema. The schema indicates a field is string (the field contains all numbers, but is still supposed to be string). When I perform XMLTOCURSOR(), the field becomes numeric when I perform the TYPE() function on it. Just as a test I changed the value in the XML document to mixed characters and number, and the TYPE() command returned U. How do I preserve the type when I perform XMLTOCURSOR()? I thought having the schema would do that.