how to load xml file into dropdownlist in asp.net

Question

the file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<data>
  <a7190>
    <food>Almond</food>
    <food>American Cheese</food>
    <food>Apple</food>
  </a7190>
  <a7191>
    <food>Trout</food>
    <food>Tuna</food>
  </a7191>
  <a7192>
    <food>Turkey</food>
    <food>Wheat</food>
  </a7192>
  <a7193>
    <food>Yogurt</food>
  </a7193>
</data>

i ONLY need to load the a7190, a7191, etc

i am using asp.net and although i am pretty well-versed with vb.net, asp.net is completely new to me

Edit: I added the <a7192> tag because it was missing and it seemed as though it should be there. If not, feel free to remove it and this comment.

Answer 1

I don't know that ASP.NET gives you any tools here that you wouldn't have in a console app or Windows app. You might try using LINQ-to-XML to pull out the elements you need, and bind that result as a datasource to your dropdown.

Answer 2

This article describes how to do this using the XMLDataSource present in ASP.NET.

EDIT: I just ran the code through the C# to VB converter located here, so the syntax is not guaranteed.

Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As EventArgs)
    If Not IsPostBack Then
         'call to the function to populate dropdownlist from xml  
         PopulateDDLFromXMLFile()
    End If
End Sub

    'populates the dropdownlist from xml file  
    Public Sub PopulateDDLFromXMLFile()
        Dim ds As New DataSet()
        ds.ReadXml(MapPath("~/Resources/XMLFile.xml"))
        
        'get the dataview of table "Country", which is default table name  
        Dim dv As DataView = ds.Tables("Country").DefaultView
        'or we can use:  
        'DataView dv = ds.Tables[0].DefaultView;  
        
        'Now sort the DataView vy column name "Name"  
        dv.Sort = "Name"
        
        'now define datatext field and datavalue field of dropdownlist  
        ddlCountry.DataTextField = "Name"
        ddlCountry.DataValueField = "ID"
        
        'now bind the dropdownlist to the dataview  
        ddlCountry.DataSource = dv
        ddlCountry.DataBind()
    End Sub