Question

I have a xml which is max 3 levels deep. Now by using C# or Xpath what the best method to check the whether all the child nodes under a parent node are empty.

Thanks in Advance.

Answer 1

Given a sample document of:

<foo>   <bar>     <baz/>     <baz>Hello, world!</baz>     <baz><qux/></baz>   </bar> </foo> 

This expression tells you which children of foo/bar have any child elements:

foo/bar/*[count(*)>0] 

This expression tells you which children of foo/bar have any child text nodes:

foo/bar/*[text()] 

So to ensure that all children are empty (no child elements or text nodes), ensure that this expression returns true:

not(foo/bar/*[count(*)>0 or text()])