xml, linq parsing

Question

I am modifying my xml using LINQ

Dim feedXML As XDocument = XDocument.Parse(m_xmld.OuterXml.ToString())
Dim SortedFields = From field In feedXML.Descendants("fields")
Dim sFieldList = From field In SortedFields.Descendants("field") Order By 
   Integer.Parse(field.@position)

what I am trying to do is sort my "fields" in an ascending order. Now my problem is I want the sorted fields to replace my unsorted fields list in the xml so that I can use the sorted xml further.

Anybody knows how can I retrive the xml after the sorting?

Thanks

Answer 1

There's no real concept of "the xml after the sorting". If you've only got field elements, it's relatively easy - but if you've got:

 <field position="2" />
 <non-field />
 <field position="1" />
 <non-field />
 <field position="0" />

then what should the result be afterwards?

Answer 2

I just did this. I needed to pass it on to another function that was expecting a xml object so I did the following this is c# code though.

public static XElement xelmSort(this XElement xelm)
    {
        List<XElement> newType = new List<XElement>();
        List<XElement> typeOne = new List<XElement>(xelm.Elements("type One"));
        List<XElement> typeTwo = new List<XElement>(xelm.Elements("type Two"));
        typeTwo.Sort((c, d) => d.Attribute("name").Value.CompareTo(c.Attribute("name").Value));
        typeOne.Sort((c, d) => d.Attribute("name").Value.CompareTo(c.Attribute("name").Value));
        typeOne.ForEach(c => newType.Add(c.xelmSort()));


        XElement outElm = new XElement(xelm.Name, xelm.Attribute("name"), xelm.Element("info"));

        newType.ForEach(outElm.Add);
        typeTwo.ForEach(outElm.Add);
        return outElm;
    }

After I was finished I needed to convert it back to an old style xml node so i used the following. This function will return a XmlDocument so you need to get the first child on it to get the node you started out with. Hope this helps.

public static XmlNode GetXmlNode(this XElement element)
    {
        using (XmlReader xmlReader = element.CreateReader())
        {
            XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
            xmlDoc.Load(xmlReader);
            return xmlDoc;
        }
    }

Answer 3

I used ReplaceNodes for this in the end:

x.ReplaceNodes(
    from el in x.Elements()
    orderby (int)el.Element("Index")
    select el                               
);