I want to merge two XmlDocuments by inserting a second XML doc to the end of an existing Xmldocument in C#. How is this done?
Something like this:
foreach (XmlNode node in documentB.DocumentElement.ChildNodes)
{
XmlNode imported = documentA.ImportNode(node, true);
documentA.DocumentElement.AppendChild(imported);
}
Note that this ignores the document element itself of document B - so if that has a different element name, or attributes you want to copy over, you'll need to work out exactly what you want to do.
EDIT: If, as per your comment, you want to embed the whole of document B within document A, that's relatively easy:
XmlNode importedDocument = documentA.ImportNode(documentB.DocumentElement, true);
documentA.DocumentElement.AppendChild(importedDocument);
This will still ignore things like the XML declaration of document B if there is one - I don't know what would happen if you tried to import the document itself as a node of a different document, and it included an XML declaration... but I suspect this will do what you want.
Inserting an entire XML document at the end of another XML document is actually guaranteed to produce invalid XML. XML requires that there be one, and only one "document" element. So, assuming that your files were as follows:
A.xml
<document>
<element>value1</element>
<element>value2</element>
</document>
B.xml
<document>
<element>value3</element>
<element>value4</element>
</document>
The resultant document by just appending one at the end of the other:
<document>
<element>value1</element>
<element>value2</element>
</document>
<document>
<element>value3</element>
<element>value4</element>
</document>
Is invalid XML.
Assuming, instead, that the two documents share a common document element, and you want to insert the children of the document element from B into A's document element, you could use the following:
var docA = new XmlDocument();
var docB = new XmlDocument();
foreach (var childEl in docB.DocumentElement.ChildNodes) {
var newNode = docA.ImportNode(childEl, true);
docA.DocumentElement.AppendChild(newNode);
}
This will produce the following document given my examples above:
<document>
<element>value1</element>
<element>value2</element>
<element>value3</element>
<element>value4</element>
</document>
This is the fastest cleanest way to merge xml documents.
XElement xFileRoot = XElement.Load(file1.xml);
XElement xFileChild = XElement.Load(file2.xml);
xFileRoot.Add(xFileChild);
xFileRoot.Save(file1.xml);
Bad news. As long as the xml documents can have only one root element you cannot just put content of one document at the end of the second. Maybe this is what you are looking for? It shows how easily you can merge xml files using Linq-to-XML
Alternatively if you are using XmlDocuments you can try make it like this:
XmlDocument documentA;
XmlDocument documentB;
foreach(var childNode in documentA.DocumentElement.ChildNodes)
documentB.DocumentElement.AppendChild(childNode);
Related
I want to read a xml string ignoring the header and the comments.
To ignore the comments it's simples and I found a solution here.
But I'm not finding any solution to ignore the header.
Let me give an example:
Consider this xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<!-- Some comments -->
<Tag Attribute="3">
...
</Tag>
I want to read the xml to a string obtaining just the element "Tag" and others elements but withou the "xml version" and the comments.
The element "Tag" is only an example. Could exist many others.
So, I want only this:
<Tag Attribute="3">
...
</Tag>
The code that I've come so far:
XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings();
settings.IgnoreComments = true;
XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create("...", settings);
xmlDoc.Load(reader);
And I'm not finding anything on XmlReaderSettings to do that.
Do I need to go node by node choosing only the ones I want? This setting does not exist?
EDIT 1:
Just to resume my problem. I need the contents of the xml to use in a CDATA of a WebService. When I'm sending comments or xml version, I'm getting an specific error of that part of xml. So I assume that when I read the xml without the version, header and comments I'll be good to go.
Here's a really simple solution.
using (var reader = XmlReader.Create(/*reader, stream, etc.*/)
{
reader.MoveToContent();
string content = reader.ReadOuterXml();
}
Well, it seems that there is no settings to ignore declaration, so I had to ignore it myself.
Here's the code I've written for those who might be interested:
private string _GetXmlWithoutHeadersAndComments(XmlDocument doc)
{
string xml = null;
// Loop through the child nodes and consider all but comments and declaration
if (doc.HasChildNodes)
{
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
foreach (XmlNode node in doc.ChildNodes)
if (node.NodeType != XmlNodeType.XmlDeclaration && node.NodeType != XmlNodeType.Comment)
builder.Append(node.OuterXml);
xml = builder.ToString();
}
return xml;
}
If you want to only get the Tag elements, you should just read the XML as normal, then find them using the XmlDocument's XPath capabilities.
For your xmlDoc object:
var nodes = xmlDoc.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("Tag");
You can then iterate through these like so:
foreach (XmlNode node in nodes) { }
Or, obviously, you could just put your SelectNodes query into the foreach loop, if you're never going to reuse the nodes object.
This will return all Tag elements within your XML document, and you can do whatever you see fit with them.
There's no need to ever encounter comments while using XmlDocument if you don't want to, and you're not going to end up getting results including either the header or the comments. Is there a particular reason you're trying to remove pieces of the XML before you begin parsing it?
Edit: Based on your edit, it seems like you're having a problem with the header giving an error when you try to pass it. You probably shouldn't straight-up remove the header, so your best option might be to change the header to one that you know works. You can change the header (declaration) like so:
XmlDeclaration xmlDeclaration;
xmlDeclaration = yourDocument.CreateXmlDeclaration(
yourVersion,
yourEncoding,
isStandalone);
yourDocument.ReplaceChild(xmlDeclaration, doc.FirstChild);
I have an XML string like below:
<root>
<Test1>
<Result time="2">ProperEnding</Result>
</Test1>
<Test2></Test2>
I have to operate on these elements. Most of the time the elements are unique within their parent element. I am using XDocument. I can remember that there is a way to access an element like this.
XNode resultTest1 = GetNodes("/root//Test1//result")
But I forgot it. It is possible to access the same using linq:
doc.root.Elements.etc.etc.
But I want it using a single string as shown above. Can anybody say how to make it?
Descendants() will skip any number level of intermediate nodes, e.g. this will skip over root and Test1:
doc.Decendants("Result")
Also note that you can use XPath with Linq2Xml as well, e.g. XPathSelectElements
doc.XPathSelectElements("/root/Test1/Result");
You can skip intermediate levels of the hierarchy with // (or use // at the start of the xpath string to skip the root)
"/root//Result"
One caveat - Xml is case sensitive , so Result and result are not the same element.
The string you're referring to ("/root//Test1//result") is an XPath expression.
You can use it with LINQ to XML classes (like XDocument) using XPathEvaluate, XPathSelectElement, and XPathSelectElements extension methods.
You can find more info about these methods on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/system.xml.xpath.extensions_methods(v=vs.90).aspx
To make them work, you need using System.Xml.XPath at the top of your file and System.Xml.Linq.dll assembly referenced (which is probably already there).
You can try to load your xml using XDocument:
// loads xml file with root element
XDocument xml = XDocument.Load("filename.xml");
Now you can append LINQ statements to your xml variable like this:
var retrieveSomeSpecificDataLikeListOfElementsAsAnonymousObjects = xml.Descendants("parentNodeName").Select(node => new { SomeSpecialValueYouWant = node.Element("elementNameUnderParentNode").Value }).ToList();
You can mix and do whatever you want - above is just an example.
Is this what you looking?
XmlDocument xmlDocument = new XmlDocument();
xmlDocument.LoadXml("YourXML");
XmlNodeList xmlNodes = xmlDocument.SelectNodes("/root/Test1/result");
i have the string, it contains xml nodes, returned from the PHP file.
It's like
<a>1</a><b>0</b><c>4</c>..............
Now i need to find out what value each node have i.e a, b, c......
while loading this string to xmlDocument i'm getting error like "There are multiple root elements".
any solution for this
One of the basic rules for well-formed XML that it has a single root node. With your example, you have multiple roots:
<a>1</a>
<b>0</b>
<c>4</c>
To make it well-formed you will have to make these elements a child of a single root:
<root>
<a>1</a>
<b>0</b>
<c>4</c>
</root>
An XML document that is not well-formed is not really an XML document at all and you will find that no XML parser will be able to read it!
Wrap it in a root element. E.g:
From <a>1</a><b>2</b>...
To <root><a>1</a><b>2</b>...</root>
Then compute as normal.
That is because each element is at the same level. There need to be a "root" that encloses all of them. Wrap them in a arbitrary node, say <root>...</root> then load the new string to the xmlDocument.
This seems like XML, but it's not valid XML. In XML, you have a root element that wraps all of the other elements.
So, if you have that string in str, do this:
str = String.Format("<root>{0}</root>", str);
How can I append an XML document to an xml node in c#?
An XmlDocument is basically an XmlNode, so you can append it just like you would do for any other XmlNode. However, the difference arises from the fact that this XmlNode does not belong to the target document, therefore you will need to use the ImportNode method and then perform the append.
// xImportDoc is the XmlDocument to be imported.
// xTargetNode is the XmlNode into which the import is to be done.
XmlNode xChildNode = xSrcNode.ImportNode(xImportDoc, true);
xTargetNode.AppendChild(xChildNode);
Yes:
XmlNode imported = targetNode.OwnerDocument.ImportNode(otherDocument.DocumentElement, true);
targetNode.AppendChild(imported);
I think this creates a clone of your document though.
Perhaps like this:
XmlNode node = ...... // belongs to targetDoc (XmlDocument)
node.AppendChild(targetDoc.ImportNode(xmlDoc.DocumentElement));
Marc
Let's say you have the following construction:
The following structure is stored in an XmlElement named xmlElement:
</root>
and the following structure is stored in an XmlNode object named FooNode;
<foo>
<bar>This is a test</bar>
<baz>And this is another test</baz>
</foo>
Then you do the following:
XmlNode node = doc.ImportNode(FooNode.SelectSingleNode("foo"), true);
xmlElement.AppendChild(node);
Hope it helps someone
Once you have the root node of the XML document in question you can append it as a child node of the node in question. Does that make sense?
I have a huge bunch of XML files with the following structure:
<Stuff1>
<Content>someContent</name>
<type>someType</type>
</Stuff1>
<Stuff2>
<Content>someContent</name>
<type>someType</type>
</Stuff2>
<Stuff3>
<Content>someContent</name>
<type>someType</type>
</Stuff3>
...
...
I need to change the each of the "Content" node names to StuffxContent; basically prepend the parent node name to the content node's name.
I planned to use the XMLDocument class and figure out a way, but thought I would ask if there were any better ways to do this.
(1.) The [XmlElement / XmlNode].Name property is read-only.
(2.) The XML structure used in the question is crude and could be improved.
(3.) Regardless, here is a code solution to the given question:
String sampleXml =
"<doc>"+
"<Stuff1>"+
"<Content>someContent</Content>"+
"<type>someType</type>"+
"</Stuff1>"+
"<Stuff2>"+
"<Content>someContent</Content>"+
"<type>someType</type>"+
"</Stuff2>"+
"<Stuff3>"+
"<Content>someContent</Content>"+
"<type>someType</type>"+
"</Stuff3>"+
"</doc>";
XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
xmlDoc.LoadXml(sampleXml);
XmlNodeList stuffNodeList = xmlDoc.SelectNodes("//*[starts-with(name(), 'Stuff')]");
foreach (XmlNode stuffNode in stuffNodeList)
{
// get existing 'Content' node
XmlNode contentNode = stuffNode.SelectSingleNode("Content");
// create new (renamed) Content node
XmlNode newNode = xmlDoc.CreateElement(contentNode.Name + stuffNode.Name);
// [if needed] copy existing Content children
//newNode.InnerXml = stuffNode.InnerXml;
// replace existing Content node with newly renamed Content node
stuffNode.InsertBefore(newNode, contentNode);
stuffNode.RemoveChild(contentNode);
}
//xmlDoc.Save
PS: I came here looking for a nicer way of renaming a node/element; I'm still looking.
I used this method to rename the node:
/// <summary>
/// Rename Node
/// </summary>
/// <param name="parentnode"></param>
/// <param name="oldname"></param>
/// <param name="newname"></param>
private static void RenameNode(XmlNode parentnode, string oldChildName, string newChildName)
{
var newnode = parentnode.OwnerDocument.CreateNode(XmlNodeType.Element, newChildName, "");
var oldNode = parentnode.SelectSingleNode(oldChildName);
foreach (XmlAttribute att in oldNode.Attributes)
newnode.Attributes.Append(att);
foreach (XmlNode child in oldNode.ChildNodes)
newnode.AppendChild(child);
parentnode.ReplaceChild(newnode, oldNode);
}
The easiest way I found to rename a node is:
xmlNode.InnerXmL = newNode.InnerXml.Replace("OldName>", "NewName>")
Don't include the opening < to ensure that the closing </OldName> tag is renamed as well.
Perhaps a better solution would be to iterate through each node, and write the information out to a new document. Obviously, this will depend on how you will be using the data in future, but I'd recommend the same reformatting as FlySwat suggested...
<stuff id="1">
<content/>
</stuff>
I'd also suggest that using the XDocument that was recently added would be the best way to go about creating the new document.
I'll answer the higher question: why are you trying this using XmlDocument?
I Think the best way to accomplish what you aim is a simple XSLT file
that match the "CONTENTSTUFF" node and output a "CONTENT" node...
don't see a reason to get such heavy guns...
Either way, If you still wish to do it C# Style,
Use XmlReader + XmlWriter and not XmlDocument for memory and speed purposes.
XmlDocument store the entire XML in memory, and makes it very heavy for Traversing once...
XmlDocument is good if you access the element many times (not the situation here).
I am not an expert in XML, and in my case I just needed to make all tag names in a HTML file to upper case, for further manipulation in XmlDocument with GetElementsByTagName. The reason I needed upper case was that for XmlDocument the tag names are case sensitive (since it is XML), and I could not guarantee that my HTML-file had consistent case in the tag names.
So I solved it like this: I used XDocument as an intermediate step, where you can rename elements (i.e. the tag name), and then loaded that into a XmlDocument. Here is my VB.NET-code (the C#-coding will be very similar).
Dim x As XDocument = XDocument.Load("myFile.html")
For Each element In x.Descendants()
element.Name = element.Name.LocalName.ToUpper()
Next
Dim x2 As XmlDocument = New XmlDocument()
x2.LoadXml(x.ToString())
For my purpose it worked fine, though I understand that in certain cases this might not be a solution if you are dealing with a pure XML-file.
Load it in as a string and do a replace on the whole lot..
String sampleXml =
"<doc>"+
"<Stuff1>"+
"<Content>someContent</Content>"+
"<type>someType</type>"+
"</Stuff1>"+
"<Stuff2>"+
"<Content>someContent</Content>"+
"<type>someType</type>"+
"</Stuff2>"+
"<Stuff3>"+
"<Content>someContent</Content>"+
"<type>someType</type>"+
"</Stuff3>"+
"</doc>";
sampleXml = sampleXml.Replace("Content","StuffxContent")
The XML you have provided shows that someone completely misses the point of XML.
Instead of having
<stuff1>
<content/>
</stuff1>
You should have:/
<stuff id="1">
<content/>
</stuff>
Now you would be able to traverse the document using Xpath (ie, //stuff[id='1']/content/) The names of nodes should not be used to establish identity, you use attributes for that.
To do what you asked, load the XML into an xml document, and simply iterate through the first level of child nodes renaming them.
PseudoCode:
foreach (XmlNode n in YourDoc.ChildNodes)
{
n.ChildNode[0].Name = n.Name + n.ChildNode[0].Name;
}
YourDoc.Save();
However, I'd strongly recommend you actually fix the XML so that it is useful, instead of wreck it further.