Sort XML nodes alphabetically on attribute name

Question

I have an XML document for which I want to sort specific nodes alphabetically.

XML document

<response>
    <lst name="facet_counts">
        <lst name="facet_fields">
            <lst name="professions_raw_nl">
                <int name="Pharmacy">2724</int>
                <int name="Physiotherapy">2474</int>
                <int name="Doctor">2246</int>
                <int name="Dentist">1309</int>
            </lst>  
        </lst>
    </lst>
</response>

Desired output
Dentist (1309)
Doctor (2246)
Pharmacy (2724)
Physiotherapy (2474)

Current ASP.NET code

dim node as XmlNode = objXML.SelectSingleNode("response/lst[@name=""facet_counts""]/lst[@name=""facet_fields""]/lst[@name=""professions_raw_nl""]")
Dim sbuilder As New StringBuilder
Dim navigator As XPathNavigator = node.CreateNavigator()
Dim selectExpression As XPathExpression = navigator.Compile("???") <-- what expression should I use here ???
selectExpression.AddSort("????", XmlSortOrder.Ascending, XmlCaseOrder.None, "", XmlDataType.Text) <-- what expression should I use here ????
Dim nodeIterator As XPathNodeIterator = navigator.Select(selectExpression)
While nodeIterator.MoveNext()
    'how can I print the name and value of the node?
End While

I have edited your title. Please see, "[Should questions include “tags” in their titles?](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19190/)", where the consensus is "no, they should not". — John Saunders, Oct 17 '12 at 22:02

Parv Sharma · Answer 1 · 2012-10-17T21:40:11.520

0

if you are using .Net>=3.5 then you can use linq to do this for you like this

var xmlString = "YOUR XML STRING";
var doc = XDocument.Parse(xmlString);

var list = doc. Descendants("int").select(n=>new {Name = n.Attribute("name").Value, Value = n.Value});
var sortedList = list.OrderBy(l=>l.Name);

EDIT not a pro in VB but try this - pls there may be syntactical errors in here

dim xmlString as string
xmlString = "YOUR XML STRING"
dim doc as XDocument()
doc = XDocument.Parse(xmlString)
dim list = doc.Descendants("int").select(n=>new {Name = n.Attribute("name").Value, Value = n.Value}).OrderBy(l=>l.Name)

LINQ stands for Language Integrated Query.. and is a lot easier and Uniform that the thing you are using currently.. you can read more here

edited Oct 17 '12 at 21:40

answered Oct 17 '12 at 21:31

Parv Sharma

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Now we're entering a side discussion. I use VB.NET, how can I use your code in there? Also, why would I want to use Linq instead of just VB.NET? – Adam Oct 17 '12 at 21:35
Doing this kind of processing in a high-level language designed for XML manipulation (such as XSLT or Linq) is always going to be much easier than writing it with low-level procedural code - once you've learned to use the tools, of course. – Michael Kay Oct 18 '12 at 08:43

Ozgur · Answer 2 · 2012-10-17T21:57:55.823

0

I tried the following code and it is working (C#) you can get values as below

        var doc = new XmlDocument();
        doc.Load("c:\\users\\ozgur\\sample.xml");
        var nav = doc.CreateNavigator();
        var node = nav.SelectSingleNode("response").SelectSingleNode("lst[@name=\"facet_counts\"]").SelectSingleNode("lst[@name=\"facet_fields\"]").SelectSingleNode("lst[@name=\"professions_raw_nl\"]").Select("int");

        var sorted = new SortedDictionary<string, string>();
        while (node.MoveNext())
        {
            var name = node.Current.SelectSingleNode("@name").Value;
            var value = node.Current.Value;
            sorted.Add(name, value);
        }

        foreach (var item in sorted)
        {
            item.Key.ToString();
            item.Value.ToString();
        }

edited Oct 17 '12 at 21:57

answered Oct 17 '12 at 21:41

Ozgur

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Where in your code is the actual sorting taking place? Could you use my own code as the base for your answer? – Adam Oct 17 '12 at 21:43
in while you can user sorted list, it will be just two lines of code – Ozgur Oct 17 '12 at 21:49
I'm not sure what you're saying, but my question was how I could sort the nodes. But do I understand correctly that you did not provide this code? – Adam Oct 17 '12 at 21:52
First you need to get the node values right, I updated the code sample – Ozgur Oct 17 '12 at 21:57

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 23 '12 at 11:29

0

Since all answers seem to work with Linq and I just wanted to use regular VB.NET I now added each node in an Arraylist and used the regular Array.Sort() on it. Does the trick.

answered Oct 23 '12 at 11:29

Adam

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Sort XML nodes alphabetically on attribute name

3 Answers3

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