How to read a xml file in App_Data with .NET MVC3 Framework according to controller?

Question

I need to read a XML file from App_Data in MVC3 according to the action that the user it's accessing at the moment.

<xml>
  <actions>
    <item action="index">
      <add url="www.stackoverflow.com" description="This site it's for learning purpouses" />
    </item>
  </actions>
</xml>

What would be the best way of getting that <item> according to the action user it's accessing?

EDIT

Forgot to mention that the XML may only be accessed by 1 controller. So the filename it's [controller].xml

Darin Dimitrov · Accepted Answer · 2011-10-14 14:52:26Z

10

You could use a XDocument and the XPathSelectElement extension method to parse XML:

public ActionResult Index()
{
    string action = RouteData.GetRequiredString("action");
    string controller = RouteData.GetRequiredString("controller");
    string appDataPath = Server.MapPath("~/app_data");
    string file = Path.Combine(appDataPath, controller + ".xml");
    var xpath = "//item[@action='" + action + "']";
    var item = XDocument.Load(file).XPathSelectElement(xpath);
    if (item != null)
    {
        var add = item.Element("add");
        var url = add.Attribute("url").Value;
        var description = add.Attribute("description").Value;
    }
    ...
}

answered Oct 14, 2011 at 14:52

Darin Dimitrov

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4 Comments

Guilherme David da Costa Over a year ago

Hm nice answer, but I guess there isn't a magical native way c# mvc3 do this and deal with the xml as objects and properties.

Darin Dimitrov Over a year ago

@Guilherme Costa, of course that there is a magical way. All you have to do is to define a view model that matches the XML structure and then deserialize the XML back to this view model. You could use the XmlSerializer class for example.

Darren Griffith Over a year ago

Also, you could use the magical DataSet: DataSet mydata = new DataSet(); mydata.ReadXml(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/sdn.xml"));

Mehman Bashirov Over a year ago

what is path? Tell please.

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