Extracting from XML string

Question

How can I write a program that turns this XML string

<outer>
  <inner>
    <boom>
      <name>John</name>
      <address>New York City</address>
    </boom>

    <boom>
      <name>Daniel</name>
      <address>Los Angeles</address>
    </boom>

    <boom>
      <name>Joe</name>
      <address>Chicago</address>
    </boom>
  </inner>
</outer>

into this string

name: John
address: New York City

name: Daniel
address: Los Angeles

name: Joe
address: Chicago

Can LINQ make it easier?

You should look into learning XPath: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164116.aspx — Geeky Guy
– Geeky Guy, Commented Jul 23, 2013 at 12:27
@Renan XPath is an old, clunky technology that is stringly typed, and the error is way more specific. — It'sNotALie.
– It'sNotALie., Commented Jul 23, 2013 at 12:50

Cédric Bignon · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-23 13:15:38Z

8

With Linq-to-XML:

XDocument document = XDocument.Load("MyDocument.xml");  // Loads the XML document with to use with Linq-to-XML

var booms = from boomElement in document.Descendants("boom")  // Go through the collection of boom elements
            select String.Format("name: {0}" + Environment.NewLine + "address: {1}",  // Format the boom item
                                 boomElement.Element("name").Value,  // Gets the name value of the boom element
                                 boomElement.Element("address").Value);  // Gets the address value of the boom element

var result = String.Join(Environment.NewLine + Environment.NewLine, booms);  // Concatenates all boom items into one string with

Update

To generalize it with any elements in boom, the idea is the same.

var booms = from boomElement in document.Descendants("boom")  // Go through the collection of boom elements
            let boolChildren = (from boomElementChild in boomElement.Elements()  // Go through the collection of elements in the boom element
                                select String.Format("{0}: {1}",  // Formats the name of the element and its value
                                                     boomElementChild.Name.LocalName,  // Name of the element
                                                     boomElementChild.Value))  // Value of the element
            select String.Join(Environment.NewLine, boolChildren);  // Concatenate the formated child elements

The first and last lines remains the same.

edited Jul 23, 2013 at 13:15

answered Jul 23, 2013 at 12:27

Cédric Bignon

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3 Comments

roger.james Over a year ago

Can you generalize this to "loop" through the elements within "boom" (not assuming the fixed "name" and "address")?

roger.james Over a year ago

Thanks, that works. Can you add another update that allows me to filter out boom elements satisfying some arbitrary condition, e.g. where address contains "New" (in this case only "New York City", and only the first boom would show up)?

roger.james Over a year ago

I created a separate question for this, feel free to take a shot at it: stackoverflow.com/questions/17815090/…

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