VB.NET-APP :: XML Parsing into Custom Objects problem

[RequieM]

Hi,

I am currently tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to effectivly parse a set of XML data I have in to an Arraylist of Custom Objects. I am unsure of the best method, whether to use Xpath or XMLreader.

My full XML data can be seen at http://pastebin.com/m393c25 however this is a snippet of XML data for example:

<config>
   <authority sfile="testdata.csv" id="3">
         <data>
             <name>title</name>
             <item1>2</item1>
             <exp>^([A-Z]*/)?(EPF/)?[0-9]{4}/[0-9]{2}$</exp>
         </data>
         <data>
             <name>location</name>
             <item1>3</item1>
             <exp></exp>
         </data>
   </authority>
<config>

My object structure:

Private Structure xmlStruct
    Public name As String
    Public column As Integer
    Public expression As String
End Structure

I am just simply creating them in my method as

Dim xmlList As New ArrayList
Dim xmlObj As xmlStruct

And I want to add each block of XML <data> into my object using, for example, a simple:

With xmlObj
    .name = strNameValue
    .column = strItem1Value
    .expression = strExpValue
End With
xmlList.Add(xmlObj)

However I am having massive problems actually traversing my XML and getting the right data from the right places and putting it into the object so each block of <data> becomes an object and is added onto the Arraylist. I was previously using an 2 dimensional array however this was incredibly messy, crude and not very adaptable. If you wish to see this code it is viewable at http://pastebin.com/d496ef501.

If anyone can offer any assistance in solving my problem of taking XML data and dumping it into an object it would be much appreciated.

[RequieM]

bump. It appears I need 20 characters or more to bump this!