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.

Create loops and parsing XML nodes value for Selenium tests

I am trying to write a test function in C# that read data from an XML file and parse into Selenium testing methods , the XML code is like:
<home>
<ask_frame>
<button>
<id>Object ID<id>
<xpath>Object XPath<xpath>
<textbox>
<id>Object ID<id>
<xpath>Object XPath<xpath>
</ask_frame>
<search_frame>
<id>Object ID<id>
<xpath>Object XPath<xpath>
</search_frame>
<home>
I am trying to create a loop that read the id and xpath value from these nodes and parse them into an method for searching a webpage element by id and xpath. My initial attempt was:
Code updated
public void CheckIdTest()
{
driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(baseURL + "FlightSearch");
XmlDocument xd = new XmlDocument();
xd.Load(#"C:\XMLFile1.xml");
XmlNodeList mainlist = xd.SelectNodes("//home/*");
XmlNode mainroot = mainlist[0];
foreach (XmlNode xnode in mainroot)
{
string objID = xnode.SelectSingleNode("id").InnerText;
string objXPath = xnode.SelectSingleNode("XPath").InnerText;
objID = objID.Trim();
objXPath = objXPath.Trim();
String checkValue = "ObjID value is: " + objID + Environment.NewLine+ "ObjXPath value is: " + objXPath;
System.IO.File.WriteAllText(#"C:\checkvalue.txt", checkValue);
objectCheck(objXPath, objID);
}
}
I have put a String and checked that correct values for ObjID and ObjXPath have been achieved, but this loop also went only twice (checked 2 nodes in first branch). How could I make it runs through every node in my XML?
Any suggestions and explanations to the code will be highly appreciated.

Basically these two lines are using incorrect XPath :
XmlNodeList idlist = xd.SelectNodes("id");
XmlNodeList xpathlist = xd.SelectNodes("XPath");
<id> and <xpath> nodes aren't located directly at the root level, so you can't access it just like above. Besides, xpath is case-sensitive so you should've used "xpath" instead of "XPath". Try to fix it like this :
XmlNodeList idlist = xd.SelectNodes("//id");
XmlNodeList xpathlist = xd.SelectNodes("//xpath");
or more verbose :
XmlNodeList idlist = xd.SelectNodes("home/*/id");
XmlNodeList xpathlist = xd.SelectNodes("home/*/xpath");
UPDATE :
Responding to your comment about looping problem, I think you want to change it like this :
foreach (XmlNode xnode in mainroot.ChildNodes)
{
string objID = xnode.SelectSingleNode("id").InnerText;
string objXPath = pathroot.SelectSingleNode("xpath").InnerText;
objectCheck(objID, objXPath);
}

You are getting this error because you are trying to use an object that is null i.e not instantiated.
Put in a breakpoint at the line
XmlDocument xd = new XmlDocument();
and step through line by line till you find where the nothing.null reference is.
It should not take long to find out what the problem is.

Yahoo News API In C#

So I'm working on a speech recognition program in C# and while trying to implement the YAHOO News API into the program I am getting no response.
I won't copy/paste my whole code as it would be very long so here are the main bits.
private void GetNews()
{
string query = String.Format("http://news.yahoo.com/rss/");
XmlDocument wData = new XmlDocument();
wData.Load(query);
XmlNamespaceManager manager = new XmlNamespaceManager(wData.NameTable);
manager.AddNamespace("media", "http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/");
XmlNode channel = wData.SelectSingleNode("rss").SelectSingleNode("channel");
XmlNodeList nodes = wData.SelectNodes("rss/channel/item/description", manager);
FirstStory = channel.SelectSingleNode("item").SelectSingleNode("title", manager).Attributes["alt"].Value;
}
I believe I have done something wrong here:
XmlNode channel = wData.SelectSingleNode("rss").SelectSingleNode("channel");
XmlNodeList nodes = wData.SelectNodes("rss/channel/item/description", manager);
FirstStory = channel.SelectSingleNode("item").SelectSingleNode("title", manager).Attributes["alt"].Value;
Here is the full XML Document: http://news.yahoo.com/rss/
If any more info is required let me know.

Hmm I have implemented my own code to get news from Yahoo, I read all the news Title ( which is located at rss/channel/item/title ) and Short story ( which is located rss/channel/item/description ).
The short story is the problem for news, and that is the point when we need to get all the inner text of description node in a string and then parse it like XML. The text code is in this format and the Short story is right behind </p>
<p><a><img /></a></p>"Short Story"<br clear="all"/>
We need to modify it since we have many xml roots (p and br) and we add an extra root <me>
string ShStory=null;
string Title = null;
//Creating a XML Document
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
//Loading rss on it
doc.Load("http://news.yahoo.com/rss/");
//Looping every item in the XML
foreach (XmlNode node in doc.SelectNodes("rss/channel/item"))
{
//Reading Title which is simple
Title = node.SelectSingleNode("title").InnerText;
//Putting all description text in string ndd
string ndd = node.SelectSingleNode("description").InnerText;
XmlDocument xm = new XmlDocument();
//Loading modified string as XML in xm with the root <me>
xm.LoadXml("<me>"+ndd+"</me>");
//Selecting node <p> which has the text
XmlNode nodds = xm.SelectSingleNode("/me/p");
//Putting inner text in the string ShStory
ShStory= nodds.InnerText;
//Showing the message box with the loaded data
MessageBox.Show(Title+ " "+ShStory);
}
Choose the me as the right answer or vote me up if the code works for you. If there are any issues you can ask me. Cheers

It's likely that you are passing that namespace manager to those attributes, but I'm not 100% certain. Those are definitely not in that .../mrss/ namespace, so I would guess that is your problem.
I would try it without passing the namespace (if possible) or using the GetElementsByTagName method to avoid namespace issues.

Tag contains the text rather than Xml.
Here is an example to display text news:
foreach (XmlElement node in nodes)
{
Console.WriteLine(Regex.Match(node.InnerXml,
"(?<=(/a>)).+(?=(</p))"));
Console.WriteLine();
}

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);

NodeList.SelectSingleNode() syntax

Having problems getting NodeList.SelectSingleNode() to work properly.
My XML looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="yes"?>
<inm:Results xmlns:inm="http://www.namespace.com/1.0">
<inm:Recordset setCount="18254">
<inm:Record setEntry="0">
<!-- snip -->
<inm:Image>fileName.jpg</inm:Image>
</inm:Record>
</inm:Recordset>
</inm:Results>
The data is a long series of <inm:Record> entries.
I open the doc and get create a NodeList object based on "inm:Record". This works great.
XmlDocument xdoc = new XmlDocument();
xdoc.Load(openFileDialog1.FileName);
XmlNodeList xRecord = xdoc.GetElementsByTagName("inm:Record");
I start looping through the NodeList using a for loop. Before I process a given entry, I want to check and see if the <inm:Image> is set. I thought it would be super easy just to do
string strImage = xRecord[i].SelectSingleNode("inm:Image").InnerText;
My thinking being, "For the XRecord that I'm on, go find the <inm:Image> value ...But this doesn't work as I get the exception saying that I need a XmlNameSpaceManager. So, I tried to set that up but could never get the syntax right.
Can someone show me how to use the correct XmlNameSpaceManager syntax in this case.
I've worked around the issue for now by looping through all of the childNodes for a given xRecord, and checking the tag once I loop around to it. I would like to check that value first to see if I need to loop over that <inm:Record> entry at all.

No need to loop through all the Record elements, just use XPath to specify the subset that you want:
XmlDocument xdoc = new XmlDocument();
xdoc.Load(openFileDialog1.FileName);
XmlNamespaceManager manager = new XmlNamespaceManager(xdoc.NameTable);
manager.AddNamespace("inm", "http://www.inmagic.com/webpublisher/query");
XmlNodeList nodes = xdoc.SelectNodes("/inm:Results/inm:Recordset/inm:Record[inm:Image != '']", manager);

Using the LINQ to XML libraries, here's an example for retrieving that said node's value:
XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(openFileDialog1.FileName);
List<XElement> docElements = doc.Elements().ToList();
XElement results = docElements.Elements().Where(
ele => ele.Name.LocalName == "Results").First();
XElement firstRecord = results.Elements().Where(
ele => ele.Name.LocalName == "Record").First();
XElement recordImage = firstRecord .Elements().Where(
ele => ele.Name.LocalName == "Image").First();
string imageName = recordImage.Value;
Also, by the way, using Hungarian notation for a type-checked language is overkill. You don't need to prepend string variables with str when it will always be a string.

XmlNamespaceManager nsMgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(xdoc.NameTable);
string strImage = xRecord[i].SelectSingleNode("inm:Image",nsMgr).InnerText;
Should do it.

Using this Xml library, you can get all the records that have an Image child element with this:
XElement root = XElement.Load(openFileDialog1.FileName);
XElement[] records = root.XPath("//Record[Image]").ToArray();
If you want to be sure that the Image child contains a value, it can be expressed like this:
XElement[] records = root.XPath("//Record[Image != '']").ToArray();