Question

I have two XmlDocuments that both have a namespace attribute specified. Both documents have the same structure, but contain different data. I can’t seem to get a specific node tree from one document added to the end of the same node tree in a second document. Here is an example of my two documents:

Document #1:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rootnode xmlns="http://www.mynamespace.com/Service/2012-06-18">
    <node0>
    </node0>
    <node1>
        <Item>
            <Id>1</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
        <Item>
            <Id>2</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
        <Item>
            <Id>3</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
    </node1>
</rootnode>

Document #2

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rootnode xmlns="http://www.mynamespace.com/Service/2012-06-18">
    <node0>
    </node0>
    <node1>
        <Item>
            <Id>4</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
        <Item>
            <Id>5</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
        <Item>
            <Id>6</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
    </node1>
</rootnode>

What I’m wanting to accomplish:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rootnode xmlns="http://www.mynamespace.com/Service/2012-06-18">
    <node0>
    </node0>
    <node1>
        <Item>
            <Id>1</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
        <Item>
            <Id>2</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
        <Item>
            <Id>3</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
        <Item>
            <Id>4</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
        <Item>
            <Id>5</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
        <Item>
            <Id>6</Id>
            ....
        </Item>
    </node1>
</rootnode>

I’m trying to add all <Item> nodes from one document to the other while maintaining the structure of all other nodes. There are an arbitrary number of <Item> nodes in either of the documents. Each <Item> node has a deep nested number of nodes that describe the Item.

Dim dstdoc As XmlDocument = myobject1.XmlDocument
Dim srcdoc As XmlDocument = myobject2.XmlDocument

Dim nsmgr As New XmlNamespaceManager(New NameTable)
nsmgr.AddNamespace("ns", "http://www.mynamespace.com/Service/2012-06-18")

Dim xpath As String = "ns:rootnode/ns:node1//ns:Item"

Dim copiedNode As XmlNode = dstdoc.ImportNode( _
                            srcdoc.SelectSingleNode(xpath, nsmgr), True)
dstdoc.DocumentElement().AppendChild(copiedNode)

I certainly know this is wrong… I’ve tried several different approaches. This particular approach adds all <Item> nodes to the destination document, but it adds them to the very bottom of the document instead of after the last <Item>.

Could someone please show me how to add a specific node tree an XmlDocument to a specific position in another document? Again, there is a namespace involved and the <Item> nodes have nested nodes/elements under each one.

NOTE: The <Id> nodes have example data to show uniqueness only. I can never count on any kind of numbering. The order of each <Item> node is totally unimportant. I’m just assuming it will be easiest to add additional <Item> nodes after the last one in the destination document.

Answer 1

You’re close. This line is incorrect:

dstdoc.DocumentElement().AppendChild(copiedNode)

That is explicitly saying that you want to append to the “document element” (meaning root element). If you want to append to a particular element in the destination document, you’ll first have to get a reference to that target element:

Dim destElement As XmlNode = dstdoc.SelectSingleNode("ns:rootnode/ns:node1", nsmgr)
For Each sourceNode in srcdoc.SelectNodes(xpath, nsmgr)
    Dim imported As XmlNode = dstdoc.ImportNode(sourceNode, True)
    destElement.AppendChild(imported)
Next