Trying to convert a xml file to an object

Question

Heya all,

I was wondering what your opinion about this would be. I'm trying to convert an xml file to a .net object. It's a xml file from the World of Warcraft armory. Here is an example.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<baseStats>
<strength attack="48" base="48" block="-1" effective="58"/>
 <agility armor="114" attack="-1" base="47" critHitPercent="4.27" effective="57"/>
 <stamina base="70" effective="1186" health="11680" petBonus="-1"/>
 <intellect base="198" critHitPercent="10.41" effective="1529" mana="22655" petBonus="-1"/>
 <spirit base="190" effective="770" healthRegen="39" manaRegen="503"/>
 <armor base="2150" effective="2150" percent="12.37" petBonus="-1"/>
</baseStats>

I've thought of 2 ways to convert this to an object and I'd like to hear your opinion about it. Ill show them.

class BaseStats{
 public int StrengthAttack{get;set;}
 public int StrengthBase{get;set;}
 public int StrengthBlock{get;set;}
 ...
 public int ArmorBase{get;set;}
 public int ArmorEffective{get;set;}
 ...
}

or

class BaseStats{
 public Strength Strength{get;set;}
 public Armor Armor{get;set;}

 public class Strength{
  public int Attack{get;set;}
  public int Base{get;set;}
  public int Block{get;set;}
 }

 public class Armor{
  public int Base{get;set;}
  public int Effective{get;set;}
 }
}

Do you see what I'm trying here. What would be your opinion about each of those ways. Or can you think of any others?

Answer 1

class CElement
{
    public int? attack { get; set; }
    public int? base { get; set; }
    public int? block { get; set; }
    public int? effective { get; set; }
    public int? petBonus { get; set; }
    public int? mana { get; set; }
    public int? healthRegen { get; set; }
    public int? manaRegen { get; set; }

    public double? critHitPercent { get; set; }
    public double? percent { get; set; }
}

class CBaseStats
{
    public CElement strength;
    public CElement agility;
    public CElement stamina;
    public CElement intellect;
    public CElement spirit;
    public CElement armor;
}

Answer 2

If you have the XSD schema (or can create one), I've used LinqToXsd to create some quick objects. The nice thing about LinqToXsd is that it creates methods you can use to easily parse XML into your objects.

Microsoft has released it as Open Source - and you can simply use a command-line call to pass in your .xsd and it will generate a .cs file with all of your classes.

Answer 3

Classless Design using an Anonymous Type

Here's another way, with .NET 3.5, if you don't want to design an explicit class you can build the object dynamically as an anonymous type; one caveat being the object properties are read-only after being initialized.

Use the XML LINQ classes to query the XML content with.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml.Linq;

Load up the XML string and query it to create an object.

// 1. Load your string into a document.
XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Load(new StringReader(my_WoW_XML_String));

// 2. Create the anonymous type...
var statsObject = new
{
    StrengthInfo = new
    {
        Attack = int.Parse(xdoc.Element("strength").Element("attack").Value),
        Base = int.Parse(xdoc.Element("strength").Element("base").Value),
        Block = int.Parse(xdoc.Element("strength").Element("block").Value),
        Effective = int.Parse(xdoc.Element("strength").Element("effective").Value),
    },

    AgilityInfo = new
    {
        Armor = int.Parse(xdoc.Element("agility").Element("armor").Value),
        Attack = int.Parse(xdoc.Element("agility").Element("attack").Value),
        Base = int.Parse(xdoc.Element("agility").Element("base").Value),
        CritHitPercent = int.Parse(xdoc.Element("agility").Element("critHitPercent").Value),
        Effective = int.Parse(xdoc.Element("agility").Element("effective").Value),
    }

    // Do the same with <spirit> and <armor> elements, etc.
    // Include only the properties you want from the XML. 

}; // end anonymous object.

Use your anonymous object normally like so:

Console.Write("strength: attack={0}, effective={1}; armor agility={2}", 
    statsObject.StrengthInfo.Attack,
    statsObject.StrengthInfo.Effective,
    statsObject.AgilityInfo.Armor);

// Do whatever you want with the object version of WoW stats.

If you have multiple XML files to process with the same schema then just wrap all the above in a loop to process one at a time.

Answer 4

If you got complete xml, 1. generate xsd from xml using the xsd.exe tool 2. generate class from the generated xsd using xsd.exe tool

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x6c1kb0s(VS.71).aspx