DBD::Oracle::st execute failed: ORA-00900: invalid SQL statement (DBD ERROR: OCIStmtExecute) [for Statement "xquery"] at oracledbitest.pl line 62.

"XQUERY" is a command to set a mode in the SQL interpreter SQL*Plus. So it is not send to the backend database engine.
Once you have set XQUERY mode then the following statement ('.....') will be embedded in a SELECT XQUERY statement by SQL*Plus before it is send to the database engine.

So if you would want to do something similar from within Perl you would need to enter in your prepare method a text like this:

SELECT XQUERY('......' RETURNING CONTENT) FROM dual;
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NB: xquery SQL extensions are not supported by all databases

Thank you, that was a much more helpful explanation than the one from Moron. I was not aware of this additional step.

It ain't lying. xquery is not an SQL command. As I already explained, you have to extract each PURE SQL statement from your XQuery script before submitting them individually via DBI.

-M

Free your mind

So I need to take the xquery and translate it back into SQL? There's no easier way to just parse xquery naturally in Perl? It doesn't have to be with DBI/DBD.