Reading XML with XDocument problem

Question

I have a following XML (part of a .rdl report):

<Report xmlns:rd="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SQLServer/reporting/reportdesigner" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/reporting/2008/01/reportdefinition">
  <DataSources>
    <DataSource Name="TMSSharepointDataSource">
      <DataSourceReference>TMSSharepointDataSource</DataSourceReference>
      <rd:DataSourceID>f06ffa33-238f-4d83-adfe-1eaa8df96e90</rd:DataSourceID>
    </DataSource>
  </DataSources>
</Report>

I try to parse and read it using following code:

byte[] fileContent = File.ReadAllBytes(@"path");
            UTF8Encoding unicode = new UTF8Encoding();
            string stringContent = unicode.GetString(fileContent);

            XDocument xml = XDocument.Parse(stringContent);
            XElement dsNode = xml.Root.Element("DataSources");

I can't figure out why is dsNode always null?

Any reason you're using File.ReadAllBytes+UTFEncoding+XDocument.Parse instead of just XDocument.Load? msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/… — dtb
– dtb, Commented Jan 18, 2010 at 14:10
yep, in the "destination code" (this was just a test code) I get bytes array as an input — agnieszka
– agnieszka, Commented Jan 18, 2010 at 16:10

Jon Skeet · Accepted Answer · 2010-01-18 14:08:43Z

3

It's a namespace issue... you need to specify the namespace for the DataSources element. Fortunately, LINQ to XML makes this really easy:

XNamespace ns = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/" + 
        "reporting/2008/01/reportdefinition";
XElement dsNode = xml.Root.Element(ns + "DataSources");

Note the xmlns="http://..." part of the root element, which means that element and all elements below it which don't have an explicit namespace inherit that namespace.

answered Jan 18, 2010 at 14:08

Jon Skeet

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3 Comments

agnieszka Over a year ago

well I suspected that it was something with the namespaces but I thought that a node <DataSources> does not have a namespace (I though it would be <rd:DataSources> if it had).

Jon Skeet Over a year ago

It's not rd - it's the other namespace declared in the root element. rd is for reportdesigner, the default is for reportdefinition.

agnieszka Over a year ago

anyway it is not there explicitly, I just have to know that child elements inherit the namespace

Rune Grimstad · Accepted Answer · 2010-01-18 14:13:51Z

0

You are probably missing a namespace reference. Your DataSources will inherit the namespace of the Report node and you will need both the namespace and element local name to generate an XName.

Alternatively you can do the following and skip the namespace check:

XElement dsNode = 
  xml
  .Root
  .DescendantNodes()
  .Where(e => e.Name.LocalName.Equals("DataSources"))
  .First();

This will return the first node where the local name is DataSources. In your example this will be the DataSources element.

Also, your loading of the document is very clumsy. I would suggest the following instead:

XDocument xml = XDocument.Load(File.OpenRead(@"path"));

answered Jan 18, 2010 at 14:13

Rune Grimstad

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