Question

I have following xml:

<TextWithNodes><Node id="0" />astralis<Node id="8" /> <Node id="9" />ltd<Node id="12" />
<Node id="14" />{<Node id="15" />DOCUMENT<Node id="23" />}<Node id="24" /> <Node id="25" />{<Node id="26" />TYPE<Node id="30" />}<Node id="31" />EX-<Node id="34" />10<Node id="36" />.<Node id="37" />12<Node id="39" /> <Node id="40" />{<Node id="41" />SEQUENCE<Node id="49" />}<Node id="50" />3<Node id="51" /> <Node id="52" />{<Node id="53" />FILENAME<Node id="61" />}<Node id="62" />e<Node id="63" />300201<Node id="69" />_<Node id="70" />ex<Node id="72" />10<Node id="74" />-<Node id="75" />12<Node id="77" />.<Node id="78" />txt<Node id="81" /> </TextWithNodes>

and I need to pick node from Id 25 to id 75. It is a portion of XML. Original XML is very long. How to do it without XPath?

Dim nodeList As XmlNodeList = xmlDoc.SelectNodes("//Node[@id >" & 25 & " and @id <" & 75 & "]")

Dim sb As StringBuilder = New StringBuilder

For Each childNode As XmlNode In nodeList
    sb.Append(childNode.InnerText)
Next

but it is not working …

Please suggest.

Thanks

Answer 1

[This is too long for a comment, so…]

Reformatting the start of the XML:

<TextWithNodes>
  <Node id="0" />
  astralis<Node id="8" />
  <Node id="9" />
  ltd
  <Node id="12" />
  < Node id="14" />
  {
  <Node id="15" />
  DOCUMENT
  <Node id="23" />
  }
  <Node id="24" />
  <Node id="25" />
  {
  <Node id="26" />
  TYPE
  <Node id="30" />

shows that node of the Node elements have no content; rather the content is between the elements. So when you say:

pick node from Id 25 to id 75

do you want just the Node elements, or all the sibling XML DOM nodes – both elements and text – between the two identified Node elements, or just the Node elements?

---

Answer: XPath thanks to this answer:

/TextWithNodes/node()[preceding-sibling::Node[@id=25] and following-sibling::Node[@id=75]]

which makes use of an empty node set being false: nodes before id="25" will have an empty preceding-sibling::... node set, similarly for the nodes after id="75".