How can I bind my collection of objects with complex object attribute?

Question

I am trying to load XML data that consists of a collection of Employee objects. The following function works fine for properties that are simple data types like String and Int. I am wondering how can I import data types of complex type. For example,

This function works fine:

private void LoadData()
{
   XDocument employeesDoc = XDocument.Load("Employees.xml");
   List<Employee> data = (from employee in employeesDoc.Descendants("Employee")
      select new Employee
      {
         FirstName= employee.Attribute("FirstName").Value,
         LastName = employee.Attribute("LastName ").Value,
         PhoneNumber = employee.Attribute("PhoneNumber").Value
      }).ToList();
  Employees.ItemsSource = data;
}

Here is the Employee class:

public class Employee
{
  public int Id { get; set; }
  public string FirstName { get; set; }
  public string LastName { get; set; }
  public string PhoneNumber { get; set; }
  public Department Department { get; set; }
}

Here is the Department class:

public class Department
{
  public int Id { get; set; }
  public string Name { get; set; }
  public string Description { get; set; }
  public Employee Manager { get; set; }
}

So, if my XML file looks like so:

<Employees>
    <Employee FirstName="John" LastName="Summers" PhoneNumber="703-548-7841" Department="Finance"></Employee>
    <Employee FirstName="Susan" LastName="Hughey" PhoneNumber="549-461-7962" Department="HR"></Employee>

So, if the Department is a complex object and it is a string in XML file, how can I change my LoadData() function to import it into my Employee object collection?

Answer 1

You have a couple of options, but everything depends how you get your XML (how it was saved). The easiest way (to my mind) to read is:

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(YourType));
using (TextReader tr = new StreamReader("newSecret.xml"))
{
 YourType rrr = (YourType)serializer.Deserialize(tr);
}

More Examples here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/he66c7f1.aspx

From the other hand if you (for some reasone) should use LINQ - take a look here: LINQ to XML: creating complex anonymous type and here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/xmlteam/archive/2007/03/24/streaming-with-linq-to-xml-part-2.aspx Hope it helps!

Answer 2

If you can get the list of all departments before you load the employees, you could put the departments into a Dictionary, where the key is the name of the department. You could then load the correct department for each employee:

var departmentsDict = departments.ToDictionary(d => d.Name);

XDocument employeesDoc = XDocument.Load("Employees.xml");
List<Employee> data = (from employee in employeesDoc.Descendants("Employee")
   select new Employee
   {
      FirstName= employee.Attribute("FirstName").Value,
      LastName = employee.Attribute("LastName ").Value,
      PhoneNumber = employee.Attribute("PhoneNumber").Value,
      Department = departmentsDict[employee.Attribute("Department").Value]
   }).ToList();
Employees.ItemsSource = data;

The code might need modification, depending on what you want to do if the department doesn't exist or if someone doesn't have any department specified. This code would throw an exception in both cases.

Answer 3

    using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace ConsoleApplication2
{

    public class Employee
    {
        public int Id { get; set; }
        public string FirstName { get; set; }
        public string LastName { get; set; }
        public string PhoneNumber { get; set; }
        public Department Department { get; set; }
    }
    public class Department
    {
        public int Id { get; set; }
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public string Description { get; set; }
        public Employee Manager { get; set; }
    }


    internal class Program
    {
        private static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            String filepath = @"C:\\rrrr.xml";

            #region Create Test Data
            List<Employee> list = new List<Employee>();
            for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
            {
                list.Add(new Employee
                             {
                                 Department = new Department
                                                  {
                                                      Description = "bla bla description " + i,
                                                      Id = i,
                                                      Manager = null,
                                                      Name = "bla bla name " + i
                                                  },
                                 FirstName = "First name " + i,
                                 Id = i + i,
                                 LastName = "Last name " + i,
                                 PhoneNumber = Guid.NewGuid().ToString()
                             });
            } 
            #endregion

            #region Save XML
            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<Employee>));
            using (Stream fs = new FileStream(filepath, FileMode.Create))
            {
                using (XmlWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter(fs, Encoding.Unicode))
                {
                    serializer.Serialize(writer, list);
                }
            } 
            #endregion


            //Read from XML

            XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
            doc.Load(filepath);

            List<Employee> newList = new List<Employee>();
            foreach (XmlNode node in doc.GetElementsByTagName("Employee"))
            {
                Employee ee = GetEmploee(node);
                newList.Add(ee);
            }

            //ta da
        }

        public static Employee GetEmploee(XmlNode node)
        {
            return node == null
                       ? new Employee()
                       : new Employee
                             {
                                 Department = GetDepartment(node["Department"]),
                                 FirstName = (node["FirstName"]).InnerText,
                                 LastName = (node["LastName"]).InnerText,
                                 Id = Convert.ToInt32((node["Id"]).InnerText),
                                 PhoneNumber = (node["PhoneNumber"]).InnerText
                             };
        }

        public static Department GetDepartment(XmlNode node)
        {
            return node == null
                       ? new Department()
                       : new Department
                             {
                                 Description = node["Description"].InnerText,
                                 Id = Convert.ToInt32(node["Id"].InnerText),
                                 Manager = GetEmploee(node["Manager"]),
                                 Name = node["Name"].InnerText
                             };
        }
    }
}