Question

I have this example code in my c# win form…

List<string> listFurniture = new List<string>();
XDocument xml = XDocument.Load(Application.StartupPath + @"\Furniture.xml");
foreach (XElement quality in xml.Descendants("Quality"))
    listFurniture.Add(quality.Value);

maintextbox.Text = listFurniture[0];

… And this example xml

<Furniture>
  <Table>
    <Quality>textbox1.Text + "and" + textbox2.Text + "but" + textbox3.Text</Quality>   
    ...
  </Table>  
</Furniture>

My dilemma is, the maintextbox is producing the actual string “textbox1.Text“, instead of the value of textbox1.

I want the xml value to be read as:

maintextbox.Text = textbox1.Text + "and" + textbox2.Text + "but" + textbox3.Text;

not as:

maintextbox.Text = "textbox1.Text + "and" + textbox2.Text + "but" + textbox3.Text";

I tried using a text file as well with StreamReader and I got the same result.

The reason for coding my project this way is because the sequence of the textboxes changes and so does the “and” and the “but”. When that change happens, I wouldn’t have to rewrite the code and recompile the program. I would just make the changes in xml.

Answer 1

There is all OK with xml parsing in your solution. What you need is processing of Quality strings.

string[] parts = quality.Split('+');
Regex regex = new Regex(@"^""(.*)""$");
var textBoxes = Controls.OfType<TextBox>().ToList();

for (int i = 0; i < parts.Length; i++)
{
    string part = parts[i].Trim();

    var match = regex.Match(part);
    if (match.Success)
    {
        parts[i] = match.Groups[1].Value;
        continue;
    }

    var textBox = textBoxes.FirstOrDefault(tb => tb.Name + ".Text" == part);
    if (textBox != null) // possibly its an error if textbox not found
        parts[i] = textBox.Text; 
}    

mainTextBox.Text = String.Join(" ", parts);

What happened here:

• We split quality string by + chars to get array of string parts
• With regular expression we verify if part looks like something in quotes "something". If yes, then it will be or, and or other connective word
• And last, we check all textboxes for matching name of textbox in quality string part. If it matches, then we replace part with text from textbox
• We join parts to get result string

---

BTW you can parse Xml in one line:

var listFurniture = xml.Descendants("Quality") 
                       .Select(q => (string)q)
                       .ToList();