Read a XML tree structure recursively in a List with children lists

Question

I have an XML like this:

And I have a Member class with property Name.

How can I read every Unit and its children Units into multiple generic List

Answer 1

Why don't you implement a Tree for storing units. That would be much easier and natural than Lists.

Have a look at this comment for a good implementation using LinkedList.

See

• MSDN: Algorithms and Data Structures
• Tree data structure in C#
• Tree: Implementing a Non-Binary Tree in C#

If you HAVE to use List, then you may use recursion to build it. I'm assuming your Unit has a property (IList Unit.ChildUnits) to hold all children List. If not you may want to wrap Unit into another class that has this.

public List LoadAllUnits(XMLNode rootNode){
    List allUnits = new List();
    foreach(var childNode in rootNode.ChildNodes){
        allUnits.Add(LoadAllSubUnits(childNode);
    }
    return allUnits;
}


private Unit LoadAllSubUnits(XMLNode node){
    Unit u = GetUnitFromCurrentNode(node); // Converts current node into Unit object
    if(root.HasChildNode){
         foreach(var childNode in node.ChildNodes){
             u.ChildUnits.Add(LoadAllSubUnits(childNode);
         }
    }
    return u;
}