XML/C#: Eeasiest way to delete elements with a specific attribute

Question

Xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Information>
  <Group Title="Abc">
    <Item Title="12" Visible="False">xxx</Item>
    <Item Title="34">xxx</Item>
  </Group>
  <Group Title="Def" Visible="False">
    <Item Title="56">xxx</Item>
  </Group>
  <Group Title="Ghi">
    <Item Title="78">xxx</Item>
    <Item Title="9">xxx</Item>
    <Item Title="10" Visible="False">xxx</Item>
  </Group>
</Information>

Want to delete all Groups (not only first or one!) and all (not only first or one!) Items with Visible=False, it teases me ...

With ex above, I want this result:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Information>
  <Group Title="Abc">
    <Item Title="34">xxx</Item>
  </Group>
  <Group Title="Ghi">
    <Item Title="78">xxx</Item>
    <Item Title="9">xxx</Item>
  </Group>
</Information>

This remove first but not all: x.Descendants("Group").Where(p => p.Attribute("Visible").Value == "False").First().Remove(); x.Descendants("Item").Where(p => p.Attribute("Visible").Value == "False").First().Remove();

For me it doesn't matter if I use XmlDocument or XDocument, but I try with Linq ...

Thanks for help/ideas ... there must be many options but ... a nice one :-)

Yitzhak Khabinsky · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-30T16:37:21.147

Please try the following solution.

It based on LINQ to XML.

As an alternative solution, it is very easy to achieve via XSLT.

Input XML file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Information>
    <Group Title="Abc">
        <Item Title="12" Visible="False">xxx</Item>
        <Item Title="34">xxx</Item>
    </Group>
    <Group Title="Def" Visible="False">
        <Item Title="56">xxx</Item>
    </Group>
    <Group Title="Ghi">
        <Item Title="78">xxx</Item>
        <Item Title="9">xxx</Item>
        <Item Title="10" Visible="False">xxx</Item>
    </Group>
    <Group Title="Def" Visible="False">
        <Item Title="56">xxx</Item>
    </Group>
</Information>

c#

void Main()
{
    const string inputXML = @"e:\Temp\MortenFredsgaardRasmussen.xml";
    const string outputXML = @"e:\Temp\MortenFredsgaardRasmussen_output.xml";

    XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Load(inputXML);

    xdoc.Descendants("Group")
        .Where(x => x.Attribute("Visible") != null)
        .Where(x => x.Attribute("Visible").Value.Equals("False"))
        .ToList()
        .ForEach(x => x.Remove());

    xdoc.Save(outputXML);
}

Output XML

<Information>
  <Group Title="Abc">
    <Item Title="12" Visible="False">xxx</Item>
    <Item Title="34">xxx</Item>
  </Group>
  <Group Title="Ghi">
    <Item Title="78">xxx</Item>
    <Item Title="9">xxx</Item>
    <Item Title="10" Visible="False">xxx</Item>
  </Group>
</Information>

Nice solution, thanks! It is easy when you just put it the right way :-) I just add the same for Items (xdoc.Descendants("Item")...) then everything was fine. Thanks! — Morten Fredsgaard Rasmussen, Jan 04 '22 at 08:15

XML/C#: Eeasiest way to delete elements with a specific attribute

1 Answers1