How to parse XML which contains attributes and Element efficiently

Question

Dear all

I have the following XML data snippets receive from a remote web service :

What is the best way to read the Paragraph attribute and element in order to store them in my database table PARAGRAPH.

Thnaks for advise
regards

Answer 1

Consider to tell us which .NET version you use, which programming language and which data from that XML exactly you want to store in a table which which fields exactly.

Generally with .NET 3.5 and later there is LINQ to XML to work with XML e.g.

  XElement p = XElement.Parse(yourXmlStringSnippet);

  int id = (int)p.Attribute("id");

  int type = (int)p.Attribute("type");

  string name = (string)p.Element("name");

  string metDim = (string)p.Element("dimensions").Element("metric");

If you want to use an API where you don't need to know XML then there is XML deserialization with System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer, on the other hand it needs a schema (which you can generate from your sample) to then infer some .NET class code adorned with attributes which conrol the deserialization e.g.

 

[XmlRoot]

public class paragraph {

     [XmlAttribute] public int id { get; set; }

     [XmlAttribute] public int type { get; set; }

     public string name { get; set; }

     public string file { get; set }

     public dimensions { get; set; }

}

public class dimensions {

  public string metric { get; set; }

  public string imperial { get; set }

}

paragraph p;

using (StringReader sr = new StringReader(yourXmlStringSnippet))

{

  XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(paragraph));

  p = (paragraph)ser.Deserialize(sr);

}

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