Develop Reference

Tricky to read XML from web service C#

I have looked everywhere, and cannot find anything to help me.
I am writing a program that connects to a webservice and then the webservice sends an XML response. After the response is received I have to retrieve certain values from it, but this is where it gets tricky
Here is a snippet of the returned XML:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<MobilePortalSellingCategoriesHierarchy xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Response xmlns="http://blabla.com/service/">Successful</Response>
<ResponseNumber xmlns="http://blabla.com/service/">0</ResponseNumber>
<SellingCategoriesHierarchy xmlns="http://tym2sell.com/PortalService/">
<Response>Successful</Response>
<ResponseNumber>0</ResponseNumber>
<SellingCategories>
<PortalSellingCategory>
<SellingCategoryId xsi:nil="true" />
<SellingCategoryName>category1</SellingCategoryName>
<DeliveryMethod />
<DeliveryMethodNumber>0</DeliveryMethodNumber>
<SellingCategories>
<PortalSellingCategory>
<SellingCategoryId xsi:nil="true" />
<SellingCategoryName>category1_Item</SellingCategoryName>
<DeliveryMethod />
<DeliveryMethodNumber>0</DeliveryMethodNumber>
<SellingCategories>
<PortalSellingCategory>
<SellingCategoryId>2</SellingCategoryId>
<SellingCategoryName>Item2</SellingCategoryName>
<DeliveryMethod>Display</DeliveryMethod>
<DeliveryMethodNumber>1</DeliveryMethodNumber>
<VoucherValue>0.00</VoucherValue>
<IsVariablePrice>true</IsVariablePrice>
<MinimumVoucherValue>1.00</MinimumVoucherValue>
<MaximumVoucherValue>1000.00</MaximumVoucherValue>
<VoucherValueIncrement>1.00</VoucherValueIncrement>
<AdditionalInputItems>
<PortalAdditionalInputItem>
<InputItemId>-1</InputItemId>
<Label>Value:</Label>
<IsNumericOnly>true</IsNumericOnly>
<MaximumLength>7</MaximumLength>
<Hidden>false</Hidden>
</PortalAdditionalInputItem>
<PortalAdditionalInputItem>
<InputItemId>4</InputItemId>
<Label>Mobile Number</Label>
<IsNumericOnly>true</IsNumericOnly>
<MaximumLength>15</MaximumLength>
<Hidden>false</Hidden>
</PortalAdditionalInputItem>
</AdditionalInputItems>
<TwoStep>false</TwoStep>
<SelectedIcon>SamplePicture</SelectedIcon>
<UnSelectedIcon>SamplePicture</UnSelectedIcon>
This repeats from the SellingCategories node just under Response for a couple of times.
Here is a Snippet of my code where I get the XML as string.
XmlDocument xml = new XmlDocument();
xml.LoadXml(receivedData);
XmlNodeList xnList = xml.SelectNodes("/MobilePortalSellingCategoriesHierarchy");
foreach (XmlNode xn in xnList)
{
string sellingCategoryName = xn["SellingCategoryName"].InnerText;
string SelectedIcon = xn["SelectedIcon"].InnerText;
string UnSelectedIcon = xn["UnSelectedIcon"].InnerText;
richTextBox1.AppendText(string.Format("Name: {0} {1} {2}", sellingCategoryName, SelectedIcon, UnSelectedIcon));
}
I have tried changing xml.SelectNodes("/MobilePortalSellingCategoriesHierarchy");
to
xml.SelectNodes("/MobilePortalSellingCategoriesHierarchy/SellingCategoriesHierarchy/SellingCategories/PortalSellingCategory");
I need to select each SellingCategoryName and list the SellingCategoryName(s) and all the other items underneath it.
I was hoping to get something in the lines of:
Category1
Category1_Item
Item2
SamplePicture
Sample Picture
Mine only reads the First Node and then returns "Successful" to me.
I havve also tried:
XElement root = XElement.Load("FilePath");
var sellingCategoryNames = from PortalSellingCategory in root.Elements("MobilePortalSellingCategoriesHierarchy")
where (string)PortalSellingCategory.Element("SellingCategoriesHierarchy").Element("SellingCategories").Element("PortalSellingCategory") != ""
select PortalSellingCategory;
foreach (var xEle in sellingCategoryNames)
{
richTextBox1.Text = (string)xEle;
}
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What you are doing with
xml.SelectNodes("/MobilePortalSellingCategoriesHierarchy");
is selecting your root node, which is just one. Thats why you only get one item in your list back. Is the hierarchy important? I can see that PortalSellingCategory can also be inside another PortalSellingCategory. If not maybe you could try the following select:
xml.SelectNodes("//PortalSellingCategory");
This will search for every node named "PortalSellingCategory" in your response, no mather where in the hierarchy it is.
EDIT:
And yes, you should look out for the namespaces, sry for didnt seeing that.
If you like geeting all the nodes with XPath you must create a new NamespaceManager and at it to your selectNodes call:
XmlDocument xml = new XmlDocument();
xml.LoadXml(data);
XmlNamespaceManager ns = new XmlNamespaceManager(xml.NameTable);
ns.AddNamespace("ns", "http://tym2sell.com/PortalService/");
XmlNodeList xnList = xml.SelectNodes("//ns:PortalSellingCategory", ns);

I would use XElement instead of XMLDocument, and then use Linq to query or pick the elmements like: XElement xContact = ....
int contactno = (int?)xContact.Element("command").Element("contactperson").Attribute("contactpersonid") ?? -1;
if (xContact.Element("command").Element("contactperson").Element("name").Element("firstname") != null)
console.writeline(xContact.Element("command").Element("contactperson").Element("name").Element("firstname").Value);

var doc= new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("FilePath");
var nodeList = xml.GetElementsByTagName("PortalSellingCategory");
Hi,
It returns the collection of nodes, and you just have to query it to get needed informations.
Feel free to ask help if needed.
Dimitri.

Adding info to a xml file

I have a XML file which contains about 850 XML nodes. Like this:
<NameValueItem>
<Text>Test</Text>
<Code>Test</Code>
</NameValueItem>
........ 849 more
And I want to add a new Childnode inside each and every Node. So I end up like this:
<NameValueItem>
<Text>Test</Text>
<Code>Test</Code>
<Description>TestDescription</Description>
</NameValueItem>
........ 849 more
I've tried the following:
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(xmlPath);
XmlNodeList nodes = doc.GetElementsByTagName("NameValueItem");
Which gives me all of the nodes, but from here am stuck(guess I need to iterate over all of the nodes and append to each and every) Any examples?

You need something along the lines of this example below. On each of your nodes, you need to create a new element to add to it. I assume you will be getting different values for the InnerText property, but I just used your example.
foreach (var rootNode in nodes)
{
XmlElement element = doc.CreateElement("Description");
element.InnerText = "TestDescription";
root.AppendChild(element);
}

You should just be able to use a foreach loop over your XmlNodeList and insert the node into each XmlNode:
foreach(XmlNode node in nodes)
{
node.AppendChild(new XmlNode()
{
Name = "Description",
Value = [value to insert]
});
}
This can also be done with XDocument using LINQ to XML as such:
XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(xmlDoc);
var updated = doc.Elements("NameValueItem").Select(n => n.Add(new XElement() { Name = "Description", Value = [newvalue]}));
doc.ReplaceWith(updated);

If you don't want to parse XML using proper classes (i.e. XDocument), you can use Regex to find a place to insert your tag and insert it:
string s = #"<NameValueItem>
<Text>Test</Text>
<Code>Test</Code>
</NameValueItem>";
string newTag = "<Description>TestDescription</Description>";
string result = Regex.Replace(s, #"(?<=</Code>)", Environment.NewLine + newTag);
but the best solution is Linq2XML (it's much better, than simple XmlDocument, that is deprecated at now).
string s = #"<root>
<NameValueItem>
<Text>Test</Text>
<Code>Test</Code>
</NameValueItem>
<NameValueItem>
<Text>Test2</Text>
<Code>Test2</Code>
</NameValueItem>
</root>";
var doc = XDocument.Load(new StringReader(s));
var elms = doc.Descendants("NameValueItem");
foreach (var element in elms)
{
element.Add(new XElement("Description", "TestDescription"));
}
var text = new StringWriter();
doc.Save(text);
Console.WriteLine(text);

Get certain xml node and save the value

Considering the following XML:
<Stations>
<Station>
<Code>HT</Code>
<Type>123</Type>
<Names>
<Short>H'bosch</Short>
<Middle>Den Bosch</Middle>
<Long>'s-Hertogenbosch</Long>
</Names>
<Country>NL</Country>
</Station>
</Stations>
There are multiple nodes. I need the value of each node.
I've got the XML from a webpage (http://webservices.ns.nl/ns-api-stations-v2)
Login (--) Pass (--)
Currently i take the XML as a string and parse it to a XDocument.
var xml = XDocument.Parse(xmlString);
foreach (var e in xml.Elements("Long"))
{
var stationName = e.ToString();
}

You can retrieve "Station" nodes using XPath, then get each subsequent child node using more XPath. This example isn't using Linq, which it looks like you possibly are trying to do from your question, but here it is:
XmlDocument xml = new XmlDocument();
xml.Load(xmlStream);
XmlNodeList stations = xml.SelectNodes("//Station");
foreach (XmlNode station in stations)
{
var code = station.SelectSingleNode("Code").InnerXml;
var type = station.SelectSingleNode("Type").InnerXml;
var longName = station.SelectSingleNode("Names/Long").InnerXml;
var blah = "you should get the point by now";
}
NOTE: If your xmlStream variable is a String, rather than a Stream, use xml.LoadXml(xmlStream); for line 2, instead of xml.Load(xmlStream). If this is the case, I would also encourage you to name your variable to be more accurately descriptive of the object you're working with (aka. xmlString).

This will give you all the values of "Long" for every Station element.
var xml = XDocument.Parse(xmlStream);
var longStationNames = xml.Elements("Long").Select(e => e.Value);

Parsing XmlDocument with Variable Parent Tags

Assuming I have an XmlDocument like this:
<xmlFile>
<details>
<code1>ADJ</code1>
<code2>ADC </code2>
<Shipment>
<foo></foo>
<bar></bar>
</Shipment>
<Shipment>
<foo></foo>
<bar></bar>
</Shipment>
</details>
<details>
<code1>ADJ</code1>
<code2>SCC </code2>
<Shipment>
<foo></foo>
<bar></bar>
</Shipment>
</details>
</xmlFile>
I need to process each in an xml file but only shipments that fall under the tags with a child node with a value of "ADC". So far I have:
// Assume there is an XmlDocument named xml
XmlNodeList details= xml.GetElementsByTagName("details");
foreach (XmlNode node in details)
{
if (node["code2"].InnerText == "ADC ")
{
// Get each shipment and process it accordingly.
}
}
I can't figure out what to do next. Thanks.

Assuming Data\Sample.xml contains xml as mentioned in the question,
Following is the XLINQ query
XElement root = XElement.Parse(File.ReadAllText(#"Data\Sample.xml"));
var adcShipment = root.Descendants().Where(e=>String.Equals(e.Value, "ADC "));
//next query for nodes/elements inside/next to ADC shipments

XPath can simplify your search for matches:
foreach (XmlNode node in xml.SelectNodes("/xmlFile/details[normalize-space(code2)='ADC']"))
{
string foo = node.SelectSingleNode("foo").InnerText;
string bar = node.SelectSingleNode("bar").InnerText;
}

I'm in the process of adding XPath parsing to this library: https://github.com/ChuckSavage/XmlLib/
I modified it so you can do this:
XElement root = XElement.Load(file);
var shipments = root.XPath("details[starts-with(*,'ADC')]/Shipment");
Long-hand that looks like:
var shipments = root.Elements("details")
.Where(x => x.Elements().Any(xx => ((string)xx).StartsWith("ADC")))
.Elements("Shipment");

This is the sort of thing you're after
XmlNodeList details = xml.GetElementsByTagName("details");
foreach (XmlNode node in details)
{
if (node["code2"].InnerText.Trim() == "ADC")
{
// Get each shipment and process it accordingly.
foreach(XmlNode shipment in node.SelectNodes("Shipment"))
{
var foo = shipment.SelectSingleNode("foo");
var bar = shipment.SelectSingleNode("bar");
}
}
}

How can I get all the nodes of a xml file?

Let's say I have this XML file:
<Names>
<Name>
<FirstName>John</FirstName>
<LastName>Smith</LastName>
</Name>
<Name>
<FirstName>James</FirstName>
<LastName>White</LastName>
</Name>
</Names>
And now I want to print all the names of the node:
Names
Name
FirstName
LastName
I managed to get the all in a XmlNodeList, but I dont know how SelectNodes works.
XmlNodeList xnList = xml.SelectNodes(/*What goes here*/);
I want to select all nodes, and then do a foreach of xnList (Using the .Value property I assume).
Is this the correct approach? How can I use the selectNodes to select all the nodes?

Ensuring you have LINQ and LINQ to XML in scope:
using System.Linq;
using System.Xml.Linq;
If you load them into an XDocument:
var doc = XDocument.Parse(xml); // if from string
var doc = XDocument.Load(xmlFile); // if from file
You can do something like:
doc.Descendants().Select(n => n.Name).Distinct()
This will give you a collection of all distinct XNames of elements in the document. If you don't care about XML namespaces, you can change that to:
doc.Descendants().Select(n => n.Name.LocalName).Distinct()
which will give you a collection of all distinct element names as strings.

There are several ways of doing it.
With XDocument and LINQ-XML
foreach(var name in doc.Root.DescendantNodes().OfType<XElement>().Select(x => x.Name).Distinct())
{
Console.WriteLine(name);
}
If you are using C# 3.0 or above, you can do this
var data = XElement.Load("c:/test.xml"); // change this to reflect location of your xml file
var allElementNames =
(from e in in data.Descendants()
select e.Name).Distinct();

Add
using System.Xml.Linq;
Then you can do
var element = XElement.Parse({Your xml string});
Console.Write(element.Descendants("Name").Select(el => string.Format("{0} {1}", el.Element("FirstName").Value, el.Element("LastName").Value)));