Reading xml and lookup in controller?

Question

I have a sample xml

<Lookup> 
    <Controller Name="Activity1" >
       <action Name="Editactivity1" appgroup="Something" productcode="SomethingElse"/>    
    </Controller> 
    <Controller Name="Activity2">    
       <action Name="Editactivity2" appgroup="Something1" productcode="SomethingElse2"/>  
    </Controller>
</Lookup>

I have the controller name and action name stored in variables.

var cntName;
var actName;

Based on these values I have to look up this Xml and fetch the corresponding appgroup and productcode values.

Note: example values for cntName would be Activity1 or Activity2 or ActivityN.
Example values for actName would be EditActivity1 or EditActivity2 or EditActivityN.

So based on these values i have to look up the xml, Hope I am clear with my problem statement.

I am reading my xml using traditional xmldatadocument, how do i change it to LINQ? Sample below.

XmlDocument xmlDocAppMod = new XmlDocument();
strFileName = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["AppModOptListPath"].ToString();
strFileLocation = System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/" + strFileName);

xmlDocAppMod.Load(strFileLocation);

Thanks, Adarsh

Is it right, that `actName` is the value of `Name` attribute? What is then the `cntName`? — Alexander Yezutov, Dec 10 '11 at 09:43
Hmmm there are two different name attributes , one for controller which is in the outer level and one more for action which is inside controller node, Let me know if it is wrong and it has to be given a different name — KeenUser, Dec 10 '11 at 09:45
Oh, ok! Didn't see the `Lookup` tag first? Does "mvc" tag means ASP.NET MVC? — Alexander Yezutov, Dec 10 '11 at 09:47

Alexander Yezutov · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-10T10:09:09.697

Basically, you have several options:

Load the document from disk and create an xPath expression to evaluate it:

var doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(fileName);
var node = doc.SelectSingleNode(
    string.Format("/Lookup/Controller[@Name='{0}']/action[@Name='{1}']", cntName, actName));

if (node != null)
{

        var appGroup = node.Attributes["appgroup"].Value;
        var productcode = node.Attributes["productcode"].Value;
}

Another option could be to use XDocument:

    var doc = XDocument.Load("");
    var action = doc.Descendants("Controller")
        .Where(c =>
                   {
                       var controllerName = c.Attribute("Name");
                       return controllerName != null && controllerName.Value.Equals(cntName);
                   })
        .FirstOrDefault()
        .Elements("action")
        .Where(a =>
                   {
                       var controllerName = a.Attribute("Name");
                       return controllerName != null && controllerName.Value.Equals(actName);
                   })
        .FirstOrDefault();
    var appGroup = action.Attribute("appgroup").Value;
    var productCode = action.Attribute("productcode").Value;

UPDATE:

Of course, you could use xPath with Linq-to-XML as well:

var doc = XDocument.Load("");
var action = (XElement) doc.XPathEvaluate(string.Format("/Lookup/Controller[@Name='{0}']/action[@Name='{1}']", cntName, actName));
var appGroup = action.Attribute("appgroup").Value;
var productCode = action.Attribute("productcode").Value;

Thanks, Can you elaborate //Read other values from here ? – KeenUser Dec 10 '11 at 10:05 — KeenUser, Dec 10 '11 at 10:05

Reading xml and lookup in controller?

1 Answers1