Best way to prettify an XmlDocument (.NET)? - c#

Let's say I have a System.Xml.XmlDocument whose InnerXml is:
<comedians><act id="1" type="single" name="Harold Lloyd"/><act id="2" type="duo" name="Laurel and Hardy"><member>Stan Laurel</member><member>Oliver Hardy</member></act></comedians>
I'd like to format it thusly, with newlines and whitespace added:
<comedians>
<act id="1" type="single" name="Harold Lloyd"/>
<act id="2" type="duo" name="Laurel and Hardy">
<member>Stan Laurel</member>
<member>Oliver Hardy</member>
</act>
</comedians>
I looked in the XmlDocument class for some prettifying method, but couldn't find one.

Basically you can use XmlDocument.Save(Stream) and pass any Stream as target to receive the xml content. Including a "memory-only" StringWriter as below:
string xml = "<myXML>";
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml(xml);
using(StringWriter sw = new StringWriter())
{
doc.Save(sw);
Console.Write(sw.GetStringBuilder().ToString());
}
Update: using block

Jon Galloway posted an answer and deleted it, but it was actually the best option for me. It went somewhat like this:
StringBuilder Prettify(XmlDocument xdoc)
{
StringBuilder myBuf = new StringBuilder();
XmlTextWriter myWriter = new XmlTextWriter(new StringWriter(myBuf));
myWriter.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
xdoc.Save(myWriter);
return myBuf;
}
No need to create a XmlWriterSettings object.

Trying to prettify XML is like putting lipstick on a pig :) It still ain't gonna be pretty.
Why are you trying to prettify it? If it is for editing purposes, Visual Studio does a pretty good job of presenting it in readable form. If it is for a user, then they may prefer to just open up in their preferred editor or explorer.

Related

Generate XML from C# Code

I have to generate specific XML data from code.
The XML needs to look like this
<this:declarationIdentifier xmlns:this="demo.org.uk/demo/DeclarationGbIdentifier"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="demo.org.uk/demo/DeclarationGbIdentifier DeclarationGbIdentifier.xsd"
xmlns:nsIdentity="demo.org.uk/demo/DeclarationGbIdentityType">
<this:declarationIdentity>
<nsIdentity:declarationUcr>Hello World</nsIdentity:declarationUcr>
</this:declarationIdentity>
</this:declarationIdentifier>
I have dabbled with XmlSerializer and XDocument but cant get the output to match this exactly
Please help.
I believe this will produce your desired output. There possibly is a simpler way this is just off the cuff to get you started. With the prefixes that you are requiring I would look up XmlDocument and adding namespaces to it to have a better understanding of what the code below is doing. Also what I would do is attempt to acquire the XSD schema file and use the XSD.exe to build a .cs file and then you can move forward with the XmlSerializer. If you move forward with the code below i highly suggest moving off your namespaceuri's into some soft of settings file so you can easily modify them in the event they change.
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
XmlElement root = doc.CreateElement("this", "declarationIdentifier", "demo.org.uk/demo/DeclarationGbIdentifier");
root.SetAttribute("xmlns:this", "demo.org.uk/demo/DeclarationGbIdentifier");
root.SetAttribute("xmlns:xsi", "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance");
//Just setting an Attribute of xsi:schemaLocation it would always drop the xsi prefix in the xml so this is different to accomodate that
XmlAttribute schemaAtt = doc.CreateAttribute("xsi", "schemaLocation", "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance");
schemaAtt.Value = "demo.org.uk/demo/DeclarationGbIdentifier DeclarationGbIdentifier.xsd";
root.Attributes.Append(schemaAtt);
root.SetAttribute("xmlns:nsIdentity", "demo.org.uk/demo/DeclarationGbIdentityType");
doc.AppendChild(root);
XmlElement declarationIdentity = doc.CreateElement("this", "declarationIdentity", "demo.org.uk/demo/DeclarationGbIdentifier");
XmlElement declarationUcr = doc.CreateElement("nsIdentity","declarationUcr","demo.org.uk/demo/DeclarationGbIdentityType");
declarationUcr.InnerText = "Hello World";
declarationIdentity.AppendChild(declarationUcr);
doc.DocumentElement.AppendChild(declarationIdentity);
To output this as a string or dump it off to a file you can use the following operations, I output to a file as well as output to the console in my test app.
using (var stringWriter = new StringWriter())
using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(#"C:\<Path to File>\testing.xml"))
using (var xmlTextWriter = XmlWriter.Create(stringWriter))
{
doc.WriteTo(xmlTextWriter);
xmlTextWriter.Flush();
writer.Write(stringWriter.GetStringBuilder().ToString());
Console.WriteLine(stringWriter.GetStringBuilder().ToString());
}

XDocument automatically indents files on parse and does not remove indent on save

I am seeking a help regarding file saving of XML file using XDocument (NOT XMLDocument).
So I have a xml file that does not have indentation (in fact it is 1 line). When I read this to XDocument using XDocument.Parse (after reading and storing string using StreamReader), the resulting XDocument is indented.
Alright, I thought it will be fine as long as if I can save it back to the file without indentation. However, even though I have
XmlWriterSettings writerSettings = new XmlWriterSettings();
writerSettings.NewLineOnAttributes = false;
writerSettings.NewLineHandling = NewLineHandling.None;
writerSettings.Indent = false;
and pass that in when I create XmlWriter
using (var writer = XmlWriter.Create(u.ToFileSystemPath(), settings))
{
xd.Save(writer);
}
The resulting XML file still has indentation. When I am debugging on Visual studio, I noticed that the writer is a class XmlWellFormedWriter. Does this have something to do with my result? Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you.
SaveOptions are available on Save() as well as ToString().
string xmlstring =
#"<Top>
<First>1</First>
<Second>Dude</Second>
<Third>Now</Third>
</Top>";
XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(xmlstring);
doc.Save(#"C:\temp\noIndet.xml", SaveOptions.DisableFormatting);
// string noIndent = doc.ToString(SaveOptions.DisableFormatting);
Output:

XmlDocument in place transform with XSL

I'm sorry if this is an obvious question, but I'm getting abit frustrated trying to find an answer.
Can I perform an XSL transform on a loaded XmlDocument in place? That is, without having to create a writer to the document?
I ask because I have an XmlDocument binding inside a WPF app that I want to sort. The sorts can get a little complicated so XSL seemed a good fit. Here's the code that I'm stuck at:
XmlDataProvider xmlDP = (XmlDataProvider)this.Resources["ItemDB"];
string xsltPath = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["XSLDirextory"];
string path = xsltPath + "SortItemName.xslt";
if (System.IO.File.Exists(path))
{
XslCompiledTransform compTrans = new XslCompiledTransform();
compTrans.Load(path);
//compTrans.Transform(xmlDP.Document, new XsltArgumentList(), xmlDP.Document.XmlResolver);
}
After loading the transform, I'd like to just be able to compTrans(xmlDP.Document); or something that has the same effect. (to be clear, xmlDP.Document is an XmlDocument ) so that the XmlDocument has the result of the transform.
What's the best way to accomplish this?
The closest you can do is create a new XmlDocument with e.g.
XmlDocument result = new XmlDocument();
using (XmlWriter xw = result.CreateNavigator().AppendChild())
{
compTrans.Transform(xmlDP.Document, null, xw);
xw.Close();
}
and then assign that to your property:
xmlDP.Document = result;
Of course that requires that xmlDP.Document can be set.
XSLT always creates a new document to hold the transformation result, it never modifies the input document.

C# XMLElement.OuterXML in a single line rather than format

I am trying to log some XML responses from a WCF Service using log4net.
I want the output of the XML file to the log to be in properly formed XML. The request comes in as an XMLElement.
Example:
The request comes in as this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ApplicationEvent xmlns="http://courts.wa.gov/INH_TV/ApplicationEvent.xsd">
<Severity xmlns="">Information</Severity>
<Application xmlns="">Application1</Application>
<Category xmlns="">Timings</Category>
<EventID xmlns="">1000</EventID>
<DateTime xmlns="">2012-09-02T12:05:15.234Z</DateTime>
<MachineName xmlns="">Server1</MachineName>
<MessageID xmlns="">10000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000</MessageID>
<Program xmlns="">Progam1</Program>
<Action xmlns="">Entry</Action>
<UserID xmlns="">User1</UserID>
</ApplicationEvent>
Then if I output this value to log4net.
logger.Info(request.OuterXml);
I get the entire document logged in a single line like so:
<ApplicationEvent xmlns="http://courts.wa.gov/INH_TV/ApplicationEvent.xsd"><Severity xmlns="">Information</Severity><Application xmlns="">Application1</Application><Category xmlns="">Timings</Category><EventID xmlns="">1000</EventID><DateTime xmlns="">2012-09-02T12:05:15.234Z</DateTime><MachineName xmlns="">Server1</MachineName><MessageID xmlns="">10000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000</MessageID><Program xmlns="">Progam1</Program><Action xmlns="">Entry</Action><UserID xmlns="">User1</UserID></ApplicationEvent>
I would like it to display in the log.txt file formatted correctly as it came in. So far the only way I have found to do this is to convert it to an XElement like so:
XmlDocument logXML = new XmlDocument();
logXML.AppendChild(logXML.ImportNode(request, true));
XElement logMe = XElement.Parse(logXML.InnerXml);
logger.Info(logMe.ToString());
This doesn't seem like good programming to me. I have been searching the documentation and I can't find a built-in way to output this correctly without converting it.
Is there an obvious, better way that I am just missing?
edit1: Removed ToString() since OuterXML is a String value.
edit2: I answered my own question:
So I did some more research, and I guess I missed a piece of code in the documentation.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlnode.outerxml.aspx
I have it down to:
using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
{
XmlWriterSettings xws = new XmlWriterSettings();
xws.Indent = true;
using (XmlWriter xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(ms, xws))
{
request.WriteTo(xmlWriter);
}
ms.Position = 0; StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(ms);
string s = sr.ReadToEnd(); // s will contain indented xml
logger.Info(s);
}
Which is a little more efficient than my current method despite being more verbose.
XElement parse is the cleanest way. You can save a line or two with:
logger.Info(XElement.Parse(request.OuterXml).ToString());

Creating an XML Element object from an XML Writer in C#

I'm writing a Windows service in C#. I've got an XmlWriter which is contains the output of an XSLT transformation. I need to get the XML into an XMLElement object to pass to a web service.
What is the best way to do this?
You do not need an intermediate string, you can create an XmlWriter that writes directly into an XmlNode:
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
using (XmlWriter xw = doc.CreateNavigator().AppendChild()) {
// Write to `xw` here.
// Nodes written to `xw` will not appear in the document
// until `xw` is closed/disposed.
}
and pass xw as the output of the transform.
NB. Some parts of the xsl:output will be ignored (e.g. encoding) because the XmlDocument will use its own settings.
Well, an XmlWriter doesn't contain the output; typically, you have a backing object (maybe a StringBuilder or MemoryStream) that is the dumping place. In this case, StringBuilder is probably the most efficient... perhaps something like:
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(sb))
{
// TODO write to writer via xslt
}
string xml = sb.ToString();
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml(xml);
XmlElement el = doc.DocumentElement;
If you provide a writer, you provide a repository where an output generator is transferring data, thus the replay of Richard is good, you don't really need a string builder to send data from a reader to an XmlDocument!

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