How does one parse XML files? [closed]

Answer 1

You can use XmlDocument and for manipulating or retrieve data from attributes you can Linq to XML classes.

Answer 2

I have just recently been required to work on an application which involved the parsing of an XML document and I agree with Jon Galloway that the LINQ to XML based approach is, in my opinion, the best. I did however have to dig a little to find usable examples, so without further ado, here are a few!

Any comments welcome as this code works but may not be perfect and I would like to learn more about parsing XML for this project!

public void ParseXML(string filePath)  
{  
    // create document instance using XML file path
    XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(filePath);

    // get the namespace to that within of the XML (xmlns="...")
    XElement root = doc.Root;
    XNamespace ns = root.GetDefaultNamespace();

    // obtain a list of elements with specific tag
    IEnumerable<XElement> elements = from c in doc.Descendants(ns + "exampleTagName") select c;

    // obtain a single element with specific tag (first instance), useful if only expecting one instance of the tag in the target doc
    XElement element = (from c in doc.Descendants(ns + "exampleTagName" select c).First();

    // obtain an element from within an element, same as from doc
    XElement embeddedElement = (from c in element.Descendants(ns + "exampleEmbeddedTagName" select c).First();

    // obtain an attribute from an element
    XAttribute attribute = element.Attribute("exampleAttributeName");
}

With these functions I was able to parse any element and any attribute from an XML file no problem at all!

Answer 3

You can parse the XML using this library System.Xml.Linq. Below is the sample code I used to parse a XML file

public CatSubCatList GenerateCategoryListFromProductFeedXML()
{
    string path = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(_xmlFilePath);

    XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Load(path);

    XElement xElement = XElement.Parse(xDoc.ToString());


    List<Category> lstCategory = xElement.Elements("Product").Select(d => new Category
    {
        Code = Convert.ToString(d.Element("CategoryCode").Value),
        CategoryPath = d.Element("CategoryPath").Value,
        Name = GetCateOrSubCategory(d.Element("CategoryPath").Value, 0), // Category
        SubCategoryName = GetCateOrSubCategory(d.Element("CategoryPath").Value, 1) // Sub Category
    }).GroupBy(x => new { x.Code, x.SubCategoryName }).Select(x => x.First()).ToList();

    CatSubCatList catSubCatList = GetFinalCategoryListFromXML(lstCategory);

    return catSubCatList;
}

Answer 4

If you're using .NET 2.0, try XmlReader and its subclasses XmlTextReader, and XmlValidatingReader. They provide a fast, lightweight (memory usage, etc.), forward-only way to parse an XML file.

If you need XPath capabilities, try the XPathNavigator. If you need the entire document in memory try XmlDocument.

Answer 5

I'd use LINQ to XML if you're in .NET 3.5 or higher.

Answer 6

Use a good XSD Schema to create a set of classes with xsd.exe and use an XmlSerializer to create a object tree out of your XML and vice versa. If you have few restrictions on your model, you could even try to create a direct mapping between you model classes and the XML with the Xml*Attributes.

There is an introductory article about XML Serialisation on MSDN.

Performance tip: Constructing an XmlSerializer is expensive. Keep a reference to your XmlSerializer instance if you intend to parse/write multiple XML files.