What is a good way to read this XML?

Question

What is a good way to read this XML? Or maybe I can structure the XML differently.

What I want is the process to be the main thing and then you could have any number of related process to follow.

  <Job>
    <Process>*something.exe</Process>
    <RelatedToProcess>*somethingelse.exe</RelatedToProcess>
    <RelatedToProcess>*OneMorething.exe</RelatedToProcess>
  </Job>

I am currently using a XmlNodeList and reading the innertext and then splitting the string on * but I know there has to be a better way.

Answer 1

you can use XDocument and XElement

Answer 2

I suggest you to use Linq To Xml. You can load your xml in XDocument and then access each separate XElement by name or path.

Answer 3

If you want the Process to be "main thing" I would recommend restructuring XML as

  <Job>
    <Process Name="*.something.exe">
        <RelatedToProcess>*somethingelse.exe</RelatedToProcess>
        <RelatedToProcess>*OneMorething.exe</RelatedToProcess>
    </Process>
  </Job>

This way you can easily get all child elements of "Process" element...And logically they relate (at least to me :)) Whether you use attribute or element is a matter of style...

Answer 4

I would actually store it slightly different. Concept is that you create a "Process" complex type and then you reuse it within RelatedProcess and you can make name an attribute if desired.

<Job>
  <Process>something.exe</Process>
  <RelatedProcess>
     <Process>
        <Name>somethingelse.exe</Name>
     </Process>
     <Process>
        <Name>OneMorething.exe
        </Name>
     </Process>
  </RelatedProcess>
</Job>

That would allow for better growth. For instance if you decided to have recursive processeses i.e.:

<Job>
  <Process>
     <Name>something.exe</Name>
     <RelatedProcess>
       <Process>
          <Name>somethingelse.exe</Name>
          <RelatedProcess>
             <Process>
              <Name>recursive.exe</Name>
             </Process>
          </RelatedProcess>
       </Process>
       <Process>
          <Name>OneMorething.exe</Name>
       </Process>
    </RelatedProcess>
  </Process>
</Job>

---

Here is an XDocument example.. I did not show the recursive creation of processes because i wasn't sure if you wanted to use it.

string xml = "<Job>...xml here ";
XDocument doc =  XDocument.Parse(xml);

var Processess = from process in doc.Elements("Job").Elements("Process")

 select new
{
    ProcessName = process.Element("Name"),
    RelatedProcesses = (from rprocess in process.Elements("RelatedProcess").Elements("Process")
                        select new
                        {
                            ProcessName = rprocess.Element("Name")
                        }
                         ).ToList()
};

Let me know if you have questions.

Answer 5

Try this console app:

class Program
{
    public class Job
    {
        public string Process { get; set; }
        public IList<string> RelatedProcesses { get; set; }
    }
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var xml = "<Job>" +
                    "<Process>*something.exe</Process>" +
                        "<RelatedToProcess>*somethingelse.exe</RelatedToProcess>" +
                        "<RelatedToProcess>*OneMorething.exe</RelatedToProcess>" +
                      "</Job>";
        var jobXml = XDocument.Parse(xml);

        var jobs = from j in jobXml.Descendants("Job")
                    select new Job
                    {
                        Process = j.Element("Process").Value,
                        RelatedProcesses = (from r in j.Descendants("RelatedToProcess")
                                            select r.Value).ToList()
                    };

        foreach (var t in jobs)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(t.Process);
            foreach (var relatedProcess in t.RelatedProcesses)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(relatedProcess);
            }
        }

        Console.Read();

    }
}

Answer 6

I like to use XmlSerializer for simple tasks like this, as it results in significantly less code to process the XML. All you need is a simple class that maps to your XML, e.g.

public class Job
{
    public string Process { get; set; }

    [XmlElement("RelatedToProcess")]
    public List<string> RelatedProcesses { get; set; }
}

You can then read the XML like this:

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Job));
using (var reader = XmlReader.Create(@"d:\temp\test.xml"))
{
    Job j = (Job)serializer.Deserialize(reader);
    Console.WriteLine(j.Process);
    Console.WriteLine(j.RelatedProcesses.Count);
    j.RelatedProcesses.ForEach(p => Console.WriteLine(p));
}

Answer 7

XDocument with Linq support with you can use standard as well as extension methods to queryj

Answer 8

XDocument for sure!

XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Load("Process.xml");
var process = from p in xDoc.Descendants("Process")
              select p.Value;

var relatedProcess = from p in xDoc.Descendants("RelatedToProcess")
                     select p.Value;

Console.WriteLine("Process: {0}", process.ElementAtOrDefault(0).ToString());
foreach (var p in relatedProcess)
    Console.WriteLine("RelatedToProcess: {0}", p);

The code will print:

Process: *something.exe
RelatedToProcess: *somethingelse.exe
RelatedToProcess: *OneMorething.exe