How to read a xml file and write it to a text file

[jack baver]

If I have the below code in the books.xml.

I would like to know how to read the xml file and write it into a html file in the table format.

Please help as I am new in c# coding.

<book>
<person>
  <first>Kiran</first>
  <last>Pai</last>
  <age>22</age>
</person>
<person>
  <first>Bill</first>
  <last>Gates</last>
  <age>46</age>
</person>
<person>
  <first>Steve</first>
  <last>Jobs</last>
  <age>40</age>
</person>
</book>

[Frinavale]

You could consider using LINQ to XML.

Or you could consider using the classes in the XML Namespace.


This is an example of how to use the XMLTextReader to read XML (retrieved from a url or path), fill a DataSet based on the XML...and display it in a Repeater (where you can specify the HTML template used to display the data...so in your case you would specify the template for a Table)

(C#)

        System.Xml.XmlTextReader reader = new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(Server.MapPath("~/testData.xml"));
        DataSet ds = new DataSet();
        ds.ReadXml(reader);
        myXMLRepeater.DataSource = ds.Tables(0);
        myXMLRepeater.DataBind();

(VB.NET)

        Dim reader As New System.Xml.XmlTextReader(Server.MapPath("~/testData.xml"))
        Dim ds As New DataSet()
        ds.ReadXml(reader)
        myXMLRepeater.DataSource = ds.Tables(0)
        myXMLRepeater.DataBind()

The "myXMLRepea ter" would look something like:

 <asp:Repeater ID="myXMLRepeater" runat="server">
    <HeaderTemplate>
      <table>
        <tr>
          <th>first</th>
          <th>last</th>
          <th>age</th>
        </tr>
    </HeaderTemplate>
    <ItemTemplate>
        <tr>
         <td><asp:Localize ID="first" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("first") %>' ></asp:Localize></td>
         <td><asp:Localize ID="last" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("last") %>' ></asp:Localize></td>
         <td><asp:Localize ID="age" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("age") %>' ></asp:Localize></td>
        </tr>
    </ItemTemplate>
    <FooterTemplate>
      </table>
    </FooterTemplate>
  </asp:Repeater>

-Frinny

[Jack Baver]

Hi,

This was awesome...but can you please explain me little more...where do I add this code???

System.Xml.XmlTextReader reader = new System.Xml.XmlTextReader(Server.MapPath("~/testData.xml"));
        DataSet ds = new DataSet();
        ds.ReadXml(reader);
        myXMLRepeater.DataSource = ds.Tables(0);
        myXMLRepeater.DataBind();

and where do I add this code???

<asp:Repeater ID="myXMLRepeater" runat="server">
    <HeaderTemplate>
      <table>
        <tr>
          <th>first</th>
          <th>last</th>
          <th>age</th>
        </tr>
    </HeaderTemplate>
    <ItemTemplate>
        <tr>
         <td><asp:Localize ID="first" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("first") %>' ></asp:Localize></td>
         <td><asp:Localize ID="last" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("last") %>' ></asp:Localize></td>
         <td><asp:Localize ID="age" runat="server" Text='<%# Eval("age") %>' ></asp:Localize></td>
        </tr>
    </ItemTemplate>
    <FooterTemplate>
      </table>
    </FooterTemplate>
  </asp:Repeater>

I am sorry I am a beginner of this .net, so can you please explain me little more...that will be very helpful...

[Frinavale]

You are developing an ASP.NET application right??

[sigo]

Here this open an xml file and output it to an html file as an html table

var sb = new StringBuilder();
            
            var doc = XDocument.Load("Book.xml");

            sb.AppendLine("<table>");
            sb.AppendLine("\t<tbody>");
            var persons = from p in doc.Element("book").Elements("person")
                          select sb.AppendLine("\t\t<tr>" + 
                                              "<td>" + p.Element("first").Value + "</td>" +
                                              "<td>" + p.Element("last").Value + "</td>" +
                                              "<td>" + p.Element("age").Value + "</td>"
                                           + "</tr>");

            persons.Count();
            sb.AppendLine("\t</tbody>");
            sb.AppendLine("</table>");

            var output = File.CreateText("out.html");
            output.Write(sb.ToString());
            output.Close();

You will get the output

<table>
<tbody>
<tr><td>Kiran </td><td>Pai</td><td>22</td></tr>
<tr><td>Bill</td><td>Gates</td><td>46</td></tr>
<tr><td>Steve </td><td>Jobs</td><td>40</td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>


I think an other (better?) solution would be to create an XSLT an call it from c# code using XslCompiledTran sform class

[sigo]

Here a solution using xslt

The xslt sheet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
    xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt" exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl"
>
  <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="yes" method="xml" indent="yes"/>

  <xsl:template match="book">
    <table>
      <tbody>
        <xsl:apply-templates select="person"/>
      </tbody>
    </table>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="first|last|age">
    <td>
      <xsl:value-of select="." />
    </td>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template match="person">
    <tr>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="first"/>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="last"/>
      <xsl:apply-templates select="age"/>
    </tr>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

And the c# code

XslCompiledTransform xslt = new XslCompiledTransform();
xslt.Load("Book.xslt");
xslt.Transform("Book.xml", "out.html");

But im not sure this solution performs better :p but you get rid of all ugly string concatenation in the c#, so pretty useful if you need to generate complex html with styles/css etc in your table