Question

I have a class with some data members (int, string, bool, Point).
These data members have public properties {get; set;}.

In my code I create an instance of this class using the default constructor.
So my Object’s data members have values of 0, string.Empty, false, {0,0} respectively.

How do I initialize these values of the field data
from an XML file, using LINQ to XML
without creating a new instance of the object.

I just want to read in the XML, and set the values of my Object.

Answer 1

It’s pretty easy using Linq to XML. Here’s a contrived example, it gets a little tougher if the document is longer and you need to validate the input, but the basic idea is the same

var root = XDocument.Parse(@"<data>
<num>3</num>
<str>string</str>
<boo>true</boo>
<point x=""3"" y=""5"" />
</data>").Root;

public class MyObject()
{
  public class Point 
  {
    int X {get;set;}
    int Y  {get;set;}
  }

  public MyObject() {
   Point = new Point();
  }
  public int Num {get;set;}
  public string Str {get;set;}
  public bool Boo {get;set;}
  public Point Point {get; private set;}
}

var myObj = root.Select(new MyObject
{
    Num = int.Parse(root.Element("num").Value),
    Str = root.Element("str").Value,
    Boo = bool.Parse(root.Element("boo").Value),
    Point.X = int.Parse(root.Element("point").Attribute("x").Value),
    Point.Y = int.Parse(root.Element("point").Attribute("y").Value)
});