Nested XML to Dictionary

Question

I am trying to convert an XML data into dictionary. I am having problems with identical node names. C# .Net 3.5

Sample XML = the problem is I have no control over this.

Answer 1

How about using DynamicXml here

dynamic root = DynamicXml.Load("a.xml");

Console.WriteLine(root.a1);
foreach (var p in root.Parameter)
{
    Console.WriteLine("{0}:{1}",p.ParameterName, p.ParameterValue);
}
Console.WriteLine(root.Parameter[0].ParameterValue);

EDIT

A generic approach would be to get a dictionary Dictionary<string,object> But there are some problems while converting an xml to dictionary. For example

<a1>val1</a1>

dict["a1"] would return val1, but what would this xml return

<a1 name="valAttr"><name>valName</name><a1>

dict["a1"]["name"] ? valAttr or valName?

And considering your example, the only difference between dict["a1"] and dict["Parameter"] is that Parameter exists more than once under the same parent and it should be thought as an array rather than a single element.

DynamicXml tries to solve these issues. Of course there is a lot of room for improvement but It should work for basic needs.

Answer 2

Here is a method which will distill the data into tuples and then output a dictionary. Note it doesn't check for duplicate keys, but that could be added:

string data = @"<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-8""?>
<Root>
  <a1>val1</a1>
  <a2>val2</a2>
  <Parameter>
    <ParameterName>param1</ParameterName>
    <ParameterValue>paramval1</ParameterValue>
  </Parameter>
  <Parameter>
    <ParameterName>param2</ParameterName>
    <ParameterValue>paramval2</ParameterValue>
  </Parameter>
</Root>";

var elements = XDocument.Parse( data )
                        .Element("Root")
                        .Descendants();

var asTupleChildren =  elements.Where (e => e.HasElements)
                               .Select (e => new Tuple<string,string>(e.Element("ParameterName").Value, e.Element("ParameterValue").Value ));

var asTupleElements =  elements.Where (e => e.HasElements == false)
                               .Where (e => e.Name != "ParameterName" && e.Name != "ParameterValue" )
                               .Select (e => new Tuple<string,string>(e.Name.ToString(), e.Value ));


var asDictionary =  asTupleElements.Concat(asTupleChildren)
                                   .ToDictionary (te => te.Item1, te => te.Item2);


/* asDictionary is a Dictionary<String,String> (4 items)

a1 val1
a2 val2
param1 paramval1
param2 paramval2

*/

Answer 3

just made this, works for me. bit clunky. use it as a template.

        public static Dictionary<string, dynamic> RecDis(string ThisXML)
    {
        Dictionary<string, dynamic> ThisBlock = new Dictionary<string, dynamic>();

        XElement doc = XElement.Parse(ThisXML);

        XNode[] ThisNoideArray = doc.Nodes().ToArray();

        foreach (XNode park in ThisNoideArray)
        {
            XElement parker = XElement.Parse(park.ToString());

            if (parker.HasElements)
            {
                ThisBlock.Add(parker.Name.ToString(), RecDis(parker.ToString()));
            }
            else
            {
                ThisBlock.Add(parker.Name.ToString(), parker.Value.ToString());
            }
        }

        return ThisBlock;
    }

Answer 4

Unless you provide a unique, non-nullable key, you won't be able to import to a dictionary structure. A couple of options I can think of:

• Create an artificial key during import
• Utilize the ToLookup() extension method instead. This doesn't return a dictionary but may suite your needs. Given a better idea of why you need a dictionary, I could possible help more.