Reading an XML Document using XmlDocument

July 10, 2015

I recently saw a question on SO relating to this, and pretty much every answer was: “Use LINQ To Xml”. Which is good advice. If you don’t want to do that (for whatever reason), then you may decide to use an approach such as the following.

Disclaimer

I am not stating that this is the best was to accomplish this, merely that it is a way. I am also not asserting that any of the books mentioned exist in the libraries they are listed under.

The Code

Declare the XML string here. Note; if you intend to read this from a file then just call Xml.Load() later on, instead of LoadXml.




        static string xmlDoc =
            @"<RootNode>
                <Library Name='Manchester'>
                    <Book>
                        <Title>Fly Fishing</Title>
                        <Author>J. R. Hartley</Author>
                        <Floor>1</Floor>
                    </Book>
                    <Book>
                        <Title>To Kill A Mockingbird</Title>
                        <Author>Harper Lee</Author>
                        <Floor>3</Floor>
                    </Book>
                </Library>
                <Library Name='London'>
                    <Book>
                        <Title>1984</Title>
                        <Author>George Orwell</Author>
                        <Floor>2</Floor>
                    </Book>
                </Library>
            </RootNode>";

Load the document:



            XmlDocument xml = new XmlDocument();
            xml.LoadXml(xmlDoc);
            XmlNodeList nodes = xml.ChildNodes;
            ReadXmlNodes(nodes);

            Console.ReadLine();

And traverse it:



        /// <summary>
        /// Traverse the XML node and print the values
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="nodes"></param>
        private static void ReadXmlNodes(XmlNodeList nodes)
        {
            foreach (XmlNode node in nodes)
            {
                // Omit #text nodes
                if (node.NodeType != XmlNodeType.Text)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(node.Name);
                }

                // Check if there are any attributes and, if so, print them now
                if (node.Attributes != null)
                {
                    PrintAttributes(node);
                }

                // If the node is a parent then recurively call the function
                if (node.HasChildNodes)
                {
                    ReadXmlNodes(node.ChildNodes);
                }
                // Otherwise just print the value
                else
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Node Value: {0}", node.Value);
                }
            }

        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Print all the attributes for a node
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="node"></param>
        private static void PrintAttributes(XmlNode node)
        {
            foreach (XmlAttribute att in node.Attributes)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Attribute: {0}", att.Value);
            }
        }
    }