XML sorting

Question

I have the following XML

<fields>
  <field position="4" tablename="Students" headername="First Name" fieldreference="FirstName" orderbydirection="ASC" />
  <field position="2" tablename="Students" headername="Last Name" fieldreference="LastName" orderbydirection="ASC" />
  <field position="3" tablename="Students" headername="Race" fieldreference="Race" orderbydirection="ASC" />
  <field position="1" tablename="Students" headername="Sex" fieldreference="Sex" orderbydirection="ASC" />
  <field position="5" tablename="Students" headername="State" fieldreference="State" orderbydirection="ASC" />
</fields>

I want to sort it based on the "position"

How can it be done?

Thanks in advance!

@Chris - Good edit. This way the syntax highlighting completely breaks. — user21926
– user21926, Commented Jan 30, 2009 at 17:46
@Sean Bright- Your right... Sorry, I should roll it back and leave it completely unformatted.... GREAT IDEA.... — cgreeno
– cgreeno, Commented Jan 30, 2009 at 17:49
I am storing the XML in the DB table. I am then retrieving it and reaching this node using m_nodelist = m_xmld.SelectNodes("report/query/select/fields/field") now i want to sort it in the code behind itself and save it back to the Daabase table — Mithil
– Mithil, Commented Jan 30, 2009 at 19:11
@Chris - I think you meant "you're right" instead of "your right." Sean 2, Chris 0 :P — user21926
– user21926, Commented Jan 31, 2009 at 1:14

Pierre · Accepted Answer · 2009-01-30 18:04:57Z

1

See sorting with XSLT http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/07/03/transform.html

answered Jan 30, 2009 at 18:04

Pierre

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Comments

Dimitre Novatchev · Accepted Answer · 2009-01-31 00:57:51Z

1

This XSLT 1.0 transformation:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
 <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" indent="yes"/>

 <xsl:strip-space elements="*"/>

    <xsl:template match="node()|@*">
      <xsl:copy>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/>
      </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="fields">
      <xsl:copy>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="@*"/>
        <xsl:apply-templates>
          <xsl:sort select="@position" data-type="number"/>
        </xsl:apply-templates>
      </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

when applied on the provided XML document:

<fields>
    <field position="4" tablename="Students" headername="First Name" fieldreference="FirstName" orderbydirection="ASC" />
    <field position="2" tablename="Students" headername="Last Name" fieldreference="LastName" orderbydirection="ASC" />
    <field position="3" tablename="Students" headername="Race" fieldreference="Race" orderbydirection="ASC" />
    <field position="1" tablename="Students" headername="Sex" fieldreference="Sex" orderbydirection="ASC" />
    <field position="5" tablename="Students" headername="State" fieldreference="State" orderbydirection="ASC" />
</fields>

produces the wanted result:

<fields>
  <field position="1" tablename="Students" headername="Sex" fieldreference="Sex" orderbydirection="ASC" />
  <field position="2" tablename="Students" headername="Last Name" fieldreference="LastName" orderbydirection="ASC" />
  <field position="3" tablename="Students" headername="Race" fieldreference="Race" orderbydirection="ASC" />
  <field position="4" tablename="Students" headername="First Name" fieldreference="FirstName" orderbydirection="ASC" />
  <field position="5" tablename="Students" headername="State" fieldreference="State" orderbydirection="ASC" />
</fields>

answered Jan 31, 2009 at 0:57

Dimitre Novatchev

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3 Comments

Mithil Over a year ago

I was able to do this using LINQ in 2 lines of code. Thakns everyone

Mithil Over a year ago

Dim sFieldList = From field In SortedFields.Descendants("field") Order By Integer.Parse(field.@position)

Mithil Over a year ago

Actually here is the full code Dim feedXML As XDocument = XDocument.Parse(sXMLDefinition.ToString()) Dim SortedFields = From field In feedXML.Descendants("fields") Dim sFieldList = From field In SortedFields.Descendants("field") Order By Integer.Parse(field.@position)

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