Develop Reference

How can I select a specific XML node and fetch the values in its child nodes

I'm trying to select a specific node and fetch the values in it's childnodes. This would normally be pretty easy, but the complication is that the nodes have the same name. My xml looks something like this;
<Settings>
<Config>
</Config>
<Items>
<Item>
<ID>Hello</ID>
<Pth>Somevalue</Pth>
<Zvb>True</Zvb>
<Ico>True</Ico>
</Item>
<Item>
<ID>Stack</ID>
<Pth>Somevalue</Pth>
<Zvb>False</Zvb>
<Ico>True</Ico>
</Item>
<Item>
<ID>Overflow</ID>
<Pth>Somevalue</Pth>
<Zvb>False</Zvb>
<Ico>True</Ico>
</Item>
</Items>
</Settings>
Each <ID>'s innertext is always unique. I now want to select the <Item> ,where it's <ID>'s innertext is "Stack". (I need the other childnode-values as well, like Pth, Zvb and Ico. So everything under <Item> basically)
I did this is powershell, and it looks something like this;
$script:specificItem = $dgvItems.rows[$_.RowIndex].Cells[1].Value
$script:fetch = #($xml.SelectNodes('//Item')) | Select-Object * | Where { $_.ID -like $specificItem }
So far I've got this (I'm in a RowEnter event of a datagridview):
XmlDocument xml = new XmlDocument();
xml.Load(GlobalVars.configfile);
int rowindex = dgvItemlist.CurrentCell.RowIndex;
dgvItemlist.Rows[rowindex].Cells[2].Value.ToString(); //This will contain for example "Stack"
XmlNodeList Items = xml.SelectNodes("//Items/Item"); //probably other ways to start as well
... but from here I struggle with filtering or selecting the one I want. I know this is a fairly common question, but I can't find a good solution for this exact issue.

You could also use XDocument (Linq to XML):
string xml =#"<Settings>
<Config>
</Config>
<Items>
<Item>
<ID>Hello</ID>
<Pth>Somevalue</Pth>
<Zvb>True</Zvb>
<Ico>True</Ico>
</Item>
<Item>
<ID>Stack</ID>
<Pth>Somevalue</Pth>
<Zvb>False</Zvb>
<Ico>True</Ico>
</Item>
<Item>
<ID>Overflow</ID>
<Pth>Somevalue</Pth>
<Zvb>False</Zvb>
<Ico>True</Ico>
</Item>
</Items>
</Settings>";
XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Parse(xml);
XElement desired = xdoc.Descendants("Item").FirstOrDefault(x=>(string)x.Element("ID")=="Stack");
if(desired!=null)
{
string Pth = (string)desired.Element("Pth");
string Zvb = (string)desired.Element("Zvb");
string Ico = (string)desired.Element("Ico");
}
desired will be the wanted element.

Try to change the last line of your code into:
XmlNodeList Items = xml.SelectNodes("//Items/Item[ID='Stack']");
This should return:
<Item>
<ID>Stack</ID>
<Pth>Somevalue</Pth>
<Zvb>False</Zvb>
<Ico>True</Ico>
</Item>

Try the following. It will return the specific node you are looking for.
XmlNode itemNode = doc.SelectSingleNode("//ID[text()='Stack']").ParentNode;

Create XML file from collection list

I have a collection string with information about customers like name, gender etc. All custumers have an id.
Now i want to create a common XML file with all customers in it. Something like example below:
<custumers>
<custumer>
<name></name>
<id></id>
<etc></etc>
</custumer>
</custumers>
The start up with no XML file is easy, I used linq to create the xml file.
For initial creation I used following code:
try
{
var xEle = new XElement("Customers",
from cus in cusList
select new XElement("Customer",
new XElement("Name", cus.Name),
new XElement("gender", cus.gender),
new XElement("etc", cus.etc));
}
xEle.Save(path);
But on the point if i want to update the XML file i get some problems to get it.
My approach to solve it:
Iterate over all customers in list and check for all customers if the customer.id exists in the XML.
IF not: add new customer to xml
IF yes: update values
My code so far:
var xEle = XDocument.Load(xmlfile);
foreach (cus in cusList)
try
{
var cids = from cid in xEle.Descendants("ID")
where Int32.Parse(xid.Element("ID").Value) == cus.ID
select new XElement("customer", cus.name),
new XElement ("gender"), cus.gender),
new XELement ("etc."), cus.etc)
);
xEle.Save(xmlpath);
}

How about a different approach....
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
public void Main()
{
DataSet Custumers = new DataSet("Custumers");
DataTable Custumer = new DataTable("Custumer");
// Create the columns
Custumer.Columns.Add("id", typeof(int)).Unique = true;
Custumer.Columns.Add("name", typeof(string));
Custumer.Columns.Add("gender", typeof(string));
Custumer.Columns.Add("etc", typeof(string));
// Set the primary key
Custumer.PrimaryKey = { Custumer.Columns("id") };
// Add table to dataset
Custumers.Tables.Add(Custumer);
Custumers.AcceptChanges();
// Add a couple of rows
Custumer.Rows.Add(1, "John", "male", "whatever");
Custumer.Rows.Add(2, "Jane", "female", "whatever");
Custumer.AcceptChanges();
// Let's save this to compare to the updated version
Custumers.WriteXml("Custumers_Original.xml");
// Read in XML that contains an existing Custumer and adds a new one
// into a Clone of the Custumer table
DataTable CustumerUpdate = Custumer.Clone;
CustumerUpdate.ReadXml("Custumers_Update.xml");
// Merge the clone table data to the Custumer table
Custumer.Merge(CustumerUpdate);
Custumer.AcceptChanges();
Custumers.WriteXml("Custumers_Final.xml");
}
Custumers_Original.xml looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<Custumers>
<Custumer>
<id>1</id>
<name>John</name>
<gender>male</gender>
<etc>whatever</etc>
</Custumer>
<Custumer>
<id>2</id>
<name>Jane</name>
<gender>female</gender>
<etc>whatever</etc>
</Custumer>
</Custumers>
Custumers_Update.xml has this, making a change to John and adding George:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Custumers>
<Custumer>
<name>John</name>
<id>1</id>
<gender>male</gender>
<etc>this is new</etc>
</Custumer>
<Custumer>
<name>George</name>
<id>3</id>
<gender>male</gender>
<etc>grandson</etc>
</Custumer>
</Custumers>
After the merge, the Custumers_Final.xml contains this:
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<Custumers>
<Custumer>
<id>1</id>
<name>John</name>
<gender>male</gender>
<etc>this is new</etc>
</Custumer>
<Custumer>
<id>2</id>
<name>Jane</name>
<gender>female</gender>
<etc>whatever</etc>
</Custumer>
<Custumer>
<id>3</id>
<name>George</name>
<gender>male</gender>
<etc>grandson</etc>
</Custumer>
</Custumers>

Also my solution with linq:
try
{
XDocument xEle = XDocument.Load(path);
var ids = from id in xEle.Descendants("Custom")
where id.Element("id").Value == cus.ID
select id;
foreach (XElement idCustom in ids)
{
idCustom.SetElementValue("NewName", "NewElement");
}
xEle.Save(path);
}

Order frequent XML Data by group using LINQ

I have an XDocument with this data:
<item>
<name>Name 1</name>
<group>foo</group>
...
</item>
<item>
<name>Name 2</name>
<group>bar</group>
...
</item>
<item>
<name>Name 3</name>
<group>foo</group>
...
</item>
That means I have 2 items with group = foo and 1 item with group = bar. How can I order that data by the most frequent group? Result:
<item>
<name>Name 1</name>
<group>foo</group>
...
</item>
<item>
<name>Name 3</name>
<group>foo</group>
...
</item>
<item>
<name>Name 2</name>
<group>bar</group>
...
</item>
Data is loaded like this:
XDocument xml = XDocument.Load(#"\path\data.xml");

You can use a simple GroupBy and OrderByDescending:
var items = xml.Root.Elements()
.GroupBy(r => r.Element("group").Value)
.OrderByDescending(r => r.Count())
.ToList();
Then simply remove all nodes and add them ordered:
xml.Root.RemoveAll();
xml.Root.Add(items);

If you want to work with objects instead of the xml, you'll first need to deserialize the xml into a List<Item>, where each Item is a class of the same structure in the xml.
After that, when you have the list you can use GroupBy:
var newList = list.GroupBy(i => i.Group) //group together by "group" value
.OrderByDescending(i => i.Count()) //simple ordering
.SelectMany(i => i) //flatten the hierarchy
.ToList(); //back to list

Linq to Xml query to child nodes

<InventoryList>
<Product xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Id>1</Id>
<Name>Pizza Ristorante Hawaii</Name>
<Price>2.99</Price>
<VariableWeightPrice>€ 8,42 / kg</VariableWeightPrice>
<Brand>Dr.Oetker</Brand>
<PackageInfo>355 GR</PackageInfo>
<categoryString />
<PictureSmallFilename>1small.jpg</PictureSmallFilename>
<InformationTakenFrom>Jumbo</InformationTakenFrom>
<MarketItemUrl></MarketItemUrl>
<BarCode>4001724819608</BarCode>
<IsBlackListed>false</IsBlackListed>
<ItemLists>
<Item>
<ListName>in</ListName>
<Quantity>1</Quantity>
<QuantityWeight>0</QuantityWeight>
</Item>
<Item>
<ListName>out</ListName>
<Quantity>2</Quantity>
<QuantityWeight>0</QuantityWeight>
</Item>
</ItemLists>
</Product>
<Product xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Id>2</Id>
<Name>Produto 2</Name>
<Price>2.99</Price>
<VariableWeightPrice>€ 5,55 / kg</VariableWeightPrice>
<Brand>Dr.Oetker</Brand>
<PackageInfo>355 GR</PackageInfo>
<categoryString />
<PictureSmallFilename>1small.jpg</PictureSmallFilename>
<InformationTakenFrom>Jumbo</InformationTakenFrom>
<MarketItemUrl></MarketItemUrl>
<BarCode>4001724819608</BarCode>
<IsBlackListed>false</IsBlackListed>
<ItemLists>
<Item>
<ListName>out</ListName>
<Quantity>1</Quantity>
<QuantityWeight>0</QuantityWeight>
</Item>
</ItemLists>
</Product>
</InventoryList>
thanks in advance for your help.
I have this xml database
i want to return all products that have the ListName = "out", but this query i´m trying it´s only returning the second product, and i need it to return the first and the second product.
var _queryItems = from c in xml.Descendants("Product")
where
c.Element("ItemLists").Element("Item").Element("ListName").Value == "out"
select c;
thanks :)

Right now you just check the first Item element, instead you want to check if any Item's ListName matches "out":
var _queryItems = from c in xml.Descendants("Product")
where c.Element("ItemLists")
.Elements("Item").Any( x=> x.Element("ListName").Value == "out")
select c;

Need a Nested LINQ to XML query help

i have a XML file as follows:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<publisher>
<name>abc</name>
<link>http://</link>
<description>xyz</description>
<category title="Top">
<item>
<title>abc</title>
<link>http://</link>
<pubDate>1</pubDate>
<description>abc</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>abc</title>
<link>http://</link>
<pubDate>2</pubDate>
<description>abc</description>
</item>
</category>
<category title="Top2">
<item>
<title>abc</title>
<link>http://</link>
<pubDate>1</pubDate>
<description>abc</description>
</item>
<item>
<title>abc</title>
<link>http://</link>
<pubDate>2</pubDate>
<description>abc</description>
</item>
</category>
</publisher>
I need to write a LINQ to XML query in C# which returns everything under a "category" tag based on the value of attribute provided. I have tried the following code but it gives me error. Any help will be appreciated:
System.Xml.Linq.XElement xml = System.Xml.Linq.XElement.Parse(e.Result);
IEnumerable<string> items = from category in xml.Elements("category")
where category.Attribute("title").Value == "Top"
select category.ToString();

IEnumerable<string> items = from category in xml.Descendants("category")
where category.Attribute("title").Value == "Top"
select category.ToString();
Of course, that's going to give you a list with one string in it. If you want just the string in it:
var items = (from category in xml.Descendants("category")
where category.Attribute("title").Value == "Top"
select category.ToString()).First();
But, if you want to continue processing the XML, you probably really want it as a XElement object:
var items = (from category in xml.Descendants("category")
where category.Attribute("title").Value == "Top"
select category).First();