XML: How to read one file into another

Question

I have a file: A.xml containing something like this:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<headernode>

</headernode>

Inside of the headernode i need to be able to dynamically load the contents of another xml file called B.xml containing the following

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<token>
<a>0</a>
</token>

My question is how do i get the contents of B.xml inside the header node of a.xml?

Thanks!

See my answer for an XQuery expression. Or do retag if this is not what you want. — , Apr 27 '11 at 21:51

Richard Nienaber · Answer 1 · 2011-04-27T21:28:11.093

3

This seems to work:

var header = XDocument.Load("a.xml");
var token = XElement.Load("b.xml");

var headerNode = header.Elements("headernode").First();
headerNode.Add(token);

Console.WriteLine(header.ToString()); 
/*
The above prints:

<headernode>
  <token>
    <a>0</a>
  </token>
</headernode>
*/

edited Apr 27 '11 at 21:28

answered Apr 27 '11 at 21:22

Richard Nienaber

10,324
6
55
66

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 27 '11 at 21:22

2

If you can use Linq to XML this would be relatively simple:

XDocument doc1 = XDocument.Load("a.xml");
XDocument doc2 = XDocument.Load("b.xml");

doc1.Element("headernode").Add(doc2.Root);

answered Apr 27 '11 at 21:22

LazyOfT

1,428
7
20

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 27 '11 at 21:45

I prefer some of the other answers, but this was the first thing that came to mind:

var a = new XmlDocument();
a.Load("c:\\a.xml");
var b = new XmlDocument();
b.Load("c:\\b.xml");
var node = a.SelectSingleNode("/headernode");
node.AppendChild(a.ImportNode(b.SelectSingleNode("/token"), true));
a.Save("c:\\c.xml");

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 27 '11 at 21:50

This XQuery:

declare function local:copy-append($element as element()) {
   if ($element instance of element(headernode))
   then
      element headernode {$element/@*,doc('B.xml')}
   else
      element {node-name($element)}
         {$element/@*,
          for $child in $element/node()
          return if ($child instance of element())
                 then local:copy-append($child)
                 else $child
         }
};
local:copy-append(/*)

Output:

<headernode>
    <token>
        <a>0</a>
    </token>
</headernode>

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 27 '11 at 21:09

Well, I do not know the exact way to do it in C-Sharp, but basically wouldn't be the default approach to

load the DOM of A.xml
locate the headernode
load B.xml into DOM
resolve the root of DOM for B
copy root from DOM B
put it as child to the located headernode of DOM A
rewrite modified DOM A to file or whereever you want ?

Since Im a Java Developer I am not very familiar with the C-Sharp XML API but basically I've seen XMLDocument and XDocument there. And when I'm not wrong XDocument is newer and simpler, but both should do it somehow.

Does this help?

Trey Carroll · Answer 6 · 2011-04-27T22:05:34.850

//myXmlToInsert.xml
/*
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <child1></child1>
  <child2></child2>
  <token>
      <a>0</a>
  </token>
</root>
*/

//code
XDocument xmlDoc = new XDocument();
xmlDoc.Declaration = new XDeclaration("1.0", "utf-8", "yes");
xmlDoc.Document.Add(new XElement("rootNode",new XElement("headerNode"), new XElement("bodyNode")));
XDocument xmlToInsert = XDocument.Load(@"c:\myXmlToInsert.xml");
XElement tokenNode = xmlToInsert.Root.Element("token");

xmlDoc.Root.Element("headerNode").Add(tokenNode);    

//Result 
/*
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <headerNode>
    <token>
       <a>0</a>
    </token>
   </headerNode>
   <bodyNode>
   </bodyNode>
</root>
*/

XML: How to read one file into another

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