Add, Edit and delete data to/from an XML file?: file, xml, delete, edit, data

Add, Edit and delete data to/from an XML file?

Asked by: MarkCC

I've got an XML file that I want to be able to add fields to, edit fields and delete fields.
Below is an example of the xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Reports>
<Report>
<Name>Bla bla</Name>
<Location>C:\bla.rpt</Location>
</Report>
<Report>
<Name>boo</Name>
<Location>C:\boo.rpt</Location>
</Report>
</Reports>

I've been able to add, edit and delete with varying degrees of success. (I've been splitting them into seperate functions of add() edit() and delete().

If anyone knows good tutorials on xml files or knows their stuff can you please help?

When adding i'll provide it with two variables: name and location which it then should add to the xml file as seen above:

<Report>
<Name>bla</Name>
<Location>c:\bla.rpt</Location>
</Report>

When editing I pass it what name and location I want to edit and then alters the fields appropriately.

When deleting I want it to delete the <Report></Report> area where the name and location is the same as the passed variables.

I'd give a lot more points for this only i've got just 65 unfortunately.

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hi for finding nodes in an XML i recommend learning XPath expression. once you have your node in question, you could access its subnodes, values and even attributes (thus able to edit them). you could also easily delete a node by searching for it using XPath containing the attribute name and value.

Get enough introduction with XML and XPath using this (though there are more on the web, this is only incase you can't find any)

http://www.w3schools.com/xml/default.asp
http://www.w3schools.com/xpath/default.asp

When you have a bit of information on XML and XPath, this is how you integrate xpath in your code
------------------------------------------------------------------
XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();

string filePath = @"<path of your file>";
string xPathString = "<your xpath string>"; // example for xpath string "//report/name='Bla bla'"

xmlDoc.Load(filePath);

XmlNode targetNode;
XmlNode root = xmlDoc.DocumentElement;

targetNode = root.SelectSingleNode(xPathString);
-----------------------------------------------------------------
// when you already have the node you can now manipulate it
// in the case of adding a new report node
-----------------------------------------------------------------
XmlElement newReportNode = xmlDoc.CreateElement("Report");
newReportNode.SetAttribute("Name","John Travolta");
newReportNode.SetAttribute("Location","Earth");

root.AppendChild(newNode);

xmlDoc.Save(filePath)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
We cannot share to you everything we know about XML and XPath usage in C# because believe me, there's still a lot to learn, but i think this is enough for a start.

hope that helps

Ryan

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