Question

I am receiving an xml message like the below (Believe me this is NOT how I want it):

<items>
 <item item="A" position="0">
   <itemvalue>10</itemvalue>
 </item>
  <item item="A" position="1">
    <itemvalue>20</itemvalue>
 </item>
  <item item="A" position="2">
    <itemvalue>30</itemvalue>
 </item>
  <item item="B" position="0">
    <itemvalue>10</itemvalue>
  </item>
   <item item="B" position="1">
     <itemvalue>20</itemvalue>
  </item>
   <item item="B" position="2">
     <itemvalue>30</itemvalue>
 </item>
</items>

I am shredding the XML using LINQ. So what I get is a List of Item | Position | Value. How I really want the data is to match my table structure.

Item  | Column1 | Column2 | Column3
A         10        20        30

What is the best way for me to take that List and Build a separate Object I can pass to the DB. Right now I am getting the distinct list of Items (So A & B here) and then passing that into a Lambda expression so that I can say give me the value where Item = A and Position = X (0,1,2).

Just wondering what the best method would be to “flatten” this poorly structured XML.

Answer 1

Read xml and group on item attribute.

var result = from ele in doc.Descendants("item")
             group ele by ele.Attribute("item").Value into grp
            select grp;
foreach (var   t in result)
 {
  XElement[] ar = t.ToArray();
  Console.WriteLine(t.Key + " "+ ar[0].Value  + " " + ar[1].Value + " " + ar[2].Value    );
}