How can I maintain the treestructure of my xml-file in the code and access the "subtags"?

Question

Hey have a little problem, I'm having a xml-file structured like this:

<cars>
  <car name="audi" id="123">
    <specs fuel="gas"/>
    <specs horsepower="150"/>
  </car>
  <car name="tesla" id="456">
    <specs fuel="electric"/>
    <specs horsepower="600"/>
  </car>
</cars

I am trying to read all the data and maintain the treestructure from the xml in the code so that I can display the car that I want lateron. Therefore I used an ObservableCollection. I tried it like this:

        XElement data = XElement.Load(path);

        IEnumerable<XElement> elements = data.Elements().Elements();

        XmlData = new ObservableCollection<XElement>();

        foreach(var item in elements)
        {
            XmlData.Add(item);
        }

With this method it doesn't add them in the collection. How can I get the different nodes from the loaded XElements and store them in an ObservableCollection? Or is there a much easier way to do this? Thanks already :)

i have tested your code, ``elements`` gives me 4 lines(specs)?what is the problem exactly? — Mohammed Sajid, Apr 13 '20 at 17:04
Haha oh now it works. But how can I get only gas and 150 in my collection for example. — Halvar Halvason, Apr 13 '20 at 17:23
you can filter after loading your xml, for example get just specs element for audi. update your question by adding what do you want exactly, because the first issue has resolved. https://learn.microsoft.com/fr-fr/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/concepts/linq/how-to-filter-on-an-attribute-xpath-linq-to-xml — Mohammed Sajid, Apr 13 '20 at 17:38

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 13 '20 at 23:30

I like putting results into a datatable which you can always bind to an observable view. I used xml linq to parse the xml

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Data;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Linq;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        const string FILENAME = @"c:\temp\test.xml";
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            DataTable dt = new DataTable();
            dt.Columns.Add("Name", typeof(string));
            dt.Columns.Add("ID", typeof(int));
            dt.Columns.Add("Fuel", typeof(string));
            dt.Columns.Add("Horsepower", typeof(int));

            XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(FILENAME);

            foreach (XElement car in doc.Descendants("car"))
            {
                DataRow newRow = dt.Rows.Add();
                newRow["Name"] = (string)car.Attribute("name");
                newRow["ID"] = (int)car.Attribute("id");
                newRow["Fuel"] = car.Descendants("specs")
                    .Where(x => x.Attribute("fuel") != null)
                    .Select(x => (string)x.Attribute("fuel"))
                    .FirstOrDefault();
                newRow["Horsepower"] = car.Descendants("specs")
                    .Where(x => x.Attribute("horsepower") != null)
                    .Select(x => (string)x.Attribute("horsepower"))
                    .FirstOrDefault();
            }

        }
    }
}

How can I maintain the treestructure of my xml-file in the code and access the "subtags"?

1 Answers1