how to edit xml file in C#

Question

<Family_Inventory>
  <FamilyCategory>Curtain Panels
    <FamilyName>System Panel
        <FamilySymbol>Glazed</FamilySymbol>
        <FamilySymbol>Wall</FamilySymbol>
    </FamilyName>
  </FamilyCategory>

  <FamilyCategory>Curtain Panels
    <FamilyName>Rectangular Mullion
      <FamilySymbol>2.5" x 5" rectangular</FamilySymbol>
    </FamilyName>
  </FamilyCategory>
  ...........
  ...........// many other family categories
  ...........

</Family_Inventory>

i want create only one FamilyCategory tag based on its value as above is 'Curtain Panels' so output will be

<Family_Inventory>
  <FamilyCategory>Curtain Panels
    <FamilyName>System Panel
        <FamilySymbol>Glazed</FamilySymbol>
        <FamilySymbol>Wall</FamilySymbol>
    </FamilyName>

    <FamilyName>Rectangular Mullion
      <FamilySymbol>2.5" x 5" rectangular</FamilySymbol>
    </FamilyName>

  </FamilyCategory>

  ...........
  ...........// many other family categories
  ...........

</Family_Inventory>

Please tell me how Can i do this?.

Thanks in Advance Regards, Nitin

This question might help you out http://stackoverflow.com/questions/331502/linq-to-xml-update-alter-the-nodes-of-an-xml-document — Twelve47, Apr 12 '11 at 09:33

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 12 '11 at 09:40

0

You should read the documentation on XmlDocument and XmlNode and it's associated classes. There is also plenty of examples of how to use them online.

Here is an introduction to XML with C#.

answered Apr 12 '11 at 09:40

Tony The Lion

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 12 '11 at 09:44

The first thing that comes to my mind is to use linq to get the whole document... then just create two classes

class FamilyCategory
{
    string name;
    List<FamilyName> familyNames;
}

class FamilyName
{
    string name;
    List<string> familySymbol;
}

after you parse the whole document just sort them by familyCategory.. then you just go through the list. You create a new instance of FamilyCategory and add all the FamilyNames to its list... For each new Cateogry you create a new class... after that you just need to add them all back which is described Here

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 12 '11 at 10:27

I've not tested this, but I think it's close. It's a very manual approach, and there may be a slicker way to do it, but it's just manually grouping the categories into a new xdocument called groupedCategoryDocument.

var doc = XDocument.Parse(xmlString);
var groupedCategoryDocument = XDocument.Parse("<Family_Inventory />");


foreach(var category in doc.Root.Elements("FamilyCategory"))
{
  //create the category for the new document
  var groupedCategory = new XElement("FamilyCategory", category.Text);

  //get all of the families for this category
  foreach(var familyName in category.Elements("FamilyName"))
  {
     //add to new document
     groupedCategory.Add(XElement.Parse(familyName.ToString());
  }

  // add category to new document
  groupedCategoryDocument.Add(groupedCategory);
}

On third preview, I think the XML you are trying to generate is too complex and I think this will be the easiest both in terms of generation & consumption

<Family_Inventory>
  <Family category="{category-name}" name="{family-name}" symbol="{symbol-1}"/>
  <Family category="{category-name}" name="{family-name}" symbol="{symbol-2}"/>
  ...
  <Family category="{category-name}" name="{family-name}" symbol="{symbol-n}"/>
</Family_Inventory>

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 12 '11 at 12:03

One possibility is to use XSLT and grouping by keys. In this case it is complicated by the use of mixed content for "category" and "name"; it makes the key construction non-obvious:

normalize-space(./node()[1]) The first child node of FamilyCategory is assumed to be a text node that contains the category name,; it is further trimmed w.r.t. white space.

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">

<xsl:output indent="yes" />

<xsl:key name="category" match="FamilyCategory" use="normalize-space(./node()[1])" />
<xsl:template match="Family_Inventory">
    <xsl:copy>
        <xsl:for-each
            select="FamilyCategory[count(. | key('category', normalize-space(./node()[1]))[1]) = 1]">
            <xsl:copy>
                <xsl:value-of select="normalize-space(./node()[1])" />
                <xsl:for-each select="key('category', normalize-space(./node()[1]))/FamilyName">
                    <xsl:copy-of select="."/>
                </xsl:for-each>
            </xsl:copy>
        </xsl:for-each>
    </xsl:copy>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

A good explanation of how it works is found here: http://www.jenitennison.com/xslt/grouping/muenchian.xml

how to edit xml file in C#

4 Answers4