Confused about reading XML Data C#

Question

i'm dramatically confused with reading XML...I feel in way over my head.

currently, using the XML below as an input source, i'm able to get all of the names by using

XmlNodeList name = xDoc.GetElementsByTagName("Name");
int i;
for (i=0; i < sent.Count; i++)
{
    MessageBox.Show(name[i].InnerText);
}

When I try to do the same for id, however, it also returns line 2 "someID".

I basically need to just rip all of the InsuredListMember and save them, any suggestions? i've been staring at xpath tutorials for a good week now and they make absolutely zero sense is why i fell back on getelementsbytagname

XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
      <id>someID</id>
      <title type="text">Title</title>
      <author>
        <name>XML Author</name>
      </author>
      <updated>2010-10-25T20:05:30.267Z</updated>
      <link href="currentURL"></link>
      <link href="nextURL"></link>
      <entry>
        <id>Drivers License Number</id>
        <content type="application/vnd.ctct+xml">
          <InsuredListMember xmlns="http://strange.com/ns/1.0/" id="drivers license number">
            <HomeAddress>123 anystreet</HomeAddress>
            <Name>doe, somegal</Name>
          </InsuredListMember>
        </content>
      </entry>
      <entry>
        <id>Drivers License Number</id>
        <content type="application/vnd.ctct+xml">
          <InsuredListMember xmlns="http://strange.com/ns/1.0/" id="drivers license number">
            <HomeAddress>321 anystreet</HomeAddress>
            <Name>doe, someguy</Name>
          </InsuredListMember>
        </content>
      </entry>
    </feed>

This is something that is quite easily done using XPath (much more easily than raw DOM). Perhaps you could ask another question about how to do this with XPath? You may get some surprisingly helpful answers. — Greg Hewgill
– Greg Hewgill, Commented Oct 25, 2010 at 21:31
Good call greg. i've been looking and thinking about it, and i'd much rather learn proper practice than greasy hacks. Thanks! — Frank Hodgkins
– Frank Hodgkins, Commented Oct 25, 2010 at 21:55
Hi Frank - I recommend learning how to use C#'s XDocument and XElement classes. See my questions to see some cool things you do with them. Learning it is really is and just works™! — delete
– delete, Commented Oct 25, 2010 at 23:08

TeaDrivenDev · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-25 23:29:42Z

2

You could try

XmlNodeList xnlInsuredListMembers = xDoc.SelectNodes("//InsuredListMember");
foreach (XmlNode xnMember in xnlInsuredListMembers)
{
    XmlNode xnHomeAddress = xnMember.SelectSingleNode("HomeAddress");
    string sHomeAddress = xnHomeAddress.InnerText;

    XmlNode xnName = xnMember.SelectSingleNode("Name");
    string sName = xnName.InnerText;

    saveMember(sName, sHomeAddress);
}

or something like that. Yes, this is XPath, but I think that's just the cleaner way.

Edit:

Alright, as I said, XML namespaces are annoying (at one time in the past even causing me to remove all xmlns attributes from the XML source because I had no idea how to handle them), but I just figured it out.

You need an XmlNamespaceManager and let it know about the namespace used (for some reason you only need the one in the InsuredListMember tag but not the one in the feed tag).

XmlNamespaceManager xnsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(xDoc.NameTable);
xnsmgr.AddNamespace("ns", "http://strange.com/ns/1.0/");

XmlNodeList xnlInsuredListMembers = xDoc.SelectNodes("//ns:InsuredListMember", xnsmgr);
foreach (XmlNode xnMember in xnlInsuredListMembers)
{
    XmlNode xnHomeAddress = xnMember.SelectSingleNode("ns:HomeAddress", xnsmgr);
    string sHomeAddress = xnHomeAddress.InnerText;

    XmlNode xnName = xnMember.SelectSingleNode("ns:Name", xnsmgr);
    string sName = xnName.InnerText;

    saveMember(sName, sHomeAddress);
}

That's the way it works.

edited Oct 25, 2010 at 23:29

answered Oct 25, 2010 at 21:34

TeaDrivenDev

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5 Comments

Pat Over a year ago

Agreed. Looks obvious and is easy to understand.

Frank Hodgkins Over a year ago

That's the issue I ran into with Xpath, seems logical enough, but //InsuredListMember doesn't actually select anything. If I do an addnamespace("ns", "strange.com/ns/1.0/") and use //ns:HomeAddress I can pull just the home address, but can't do a //ns.

TeaDrivenDev Over a year ago

Ah, damn, the namespace; those are annoying. What would you want to achieve with //ns ?

Frank Hodgkins Over a year ago

Just doing some testing, sorry i'm kind of scatter brained today. Following your example above, xnMember.SelectNode doesn't exist, assumed selectsinglenode was meant. upon execution i get no errors, but nothing is found/returned?

TeaDrivenDev Over a year ago

Yeah, I actually meant SelectSingleNode(); I corrected that and added the correct namespace handling.

Sorax · Accepted Answer · 2010-10-25 22:25:08Z

0

I recommend learning LINQ To XML. There is a mess of antiquated DOMs in .NET and LINQ improves on all of them so much I don't see a reason to learn them at this point. The following line retrieves the "InsuredListMember" nodes in LINQ:

var insuredListMembers = xDoc.Descendants("InsuredListMember");

xDoc in this case would be an XElement from the System.Xml.Linq namespace. And insuredListMembers would be an IEnumerable<XElement> that can be further queried, sorted or anything else an Enumerable can do. If you are just starting to use XML skip XPath. LINQ is the present and the future, for very good reasons.

answered Oct 25, 2010 at 22:25

Sorax

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