Searching for a certain value in an xml file using C#

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Hi To all

I've been searching for this problem and seem not find a link that will help mw maybe its the key words for searching that i am typing wrong, well then here is my problem.

I have an xml file the has the following contents as below :

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
- <Employees>
- <Employee>
  <ID>1</ID> 
  <FirstName>David</FirstName> 
  <LastName>Smith</LastName> 
  <Salary>10000</Salary> 
  </Employee>
- <Employee>
  <ID>3</ID> 
  <FirstName>Mark</FirstName> 
  <LastName>Drinkwater</LastName> 
  <Salary>30000</Salary> 
  </Employee>
- <Employee>
  <ID>4</ID> 
  <FirstName>Norah</FirstName> 
  <LastName>Miller</LastName> 
  <Salary>20000</Salary> 
  </Employee>
- <Employee>
  <ID>12</ID> 
  <FirstName>Cecil</FirstName> 
  <LastName>Walker</LastName> 
  <Salary>120000</Salary> 
  </Employee>
  </Employees>

Writing to an xml file i have no problem.
What I would like to do retrieve not the whole contents of the file, but retrieve only the one the employees searching by one attribute, say the employee attribute. If you were to assist me in tutorials that would help me over come my problem using C# i would be forever grateful.

Thanks in advance

Posted 2-Apr-13 21:01pm

sijimann

Updated 2-Apr-13 21:06pm

Zoltán Zörgő

v2

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4 solutions

Solution 1

Well, you have several possibilities:
1) Deserialize this to a c# collection. Load and save objects to XML using serialization[^], XML serialization using Generics[^]
2) Use XQuesy/XPath libraries: XSL 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 in .NET[^]
3) Use LINQ to XML: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb387098.aspx[^], http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsdesktop/LINQ-LINQ-to-XML-using-6f2d2218[^]
4) You can even use regular expressions in some limited situations, like what you specified.

Posted 2-Apr-13 21:13pm

Zoltán Zörgő

Solution 2

C#

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
            doc.Load(Server.MapPath(@"XMLFile1.xml"));
            XmlNodeList addlst = doc.SelectNodes("Employees/Employee/FirstName/firstName");

Posted 2-Apr-13 21:14pm

AminMhmdi

Updated 2-Apr-13 22:10pm

v2

Solution 3

You might use XPath for the purpose. If you are not familiar with XPath queries, then have a look at w3schools XPath tutorial[^]. You may also find "World’s Smallest XML XPath Tutorial"[^] interesting.

The following silly example searches for the Employee 'Norah' and reports her details (warning: no error checking):

C#

using System;
using System.Xml;
namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
            doc.Load("empl.xml"); // Your file
            
            XmlNode xnd = doc.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("./Employee[FirstName/text()='Norah']");
            Console.WriteLine("ID = {0}, LastName = {1}, Salary = {2}", xnd.ChildNodes[0].InnerText, xnd.ChildNodes[2].InnerText, xnd.ChildNodes[3].InnerText);
        }
    }
}

Posted 2-Apr-13 21:21pm

CPallini

Updated 2-Apr-13 22:02pm

v4

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codeninja-C# · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-02T21:25:00

Solution 4

hi,

follow Jeson method.
you can get XPath description form XPath

if you need further help , let me know

Regards,
--SJ

Posted 2-Apr-13 21:25pm

codeninja-C#

Comments

sijimann 3-Apr-13 11:00am

thanks a lot

codeninja-C# 4-Apr-13 3:35am

you are welcome :)