Question

I want to read a XML hierarchy into a tree of in-memory objects. The XML tree could have n-levels of children. I do not know the exact number. My in-memory objects have a children and parent property to be bound to a tree control.

How can I read xml file/string in a generic way into my in-memory objects when I do not know how the xml element tags are called/written exactly?

For example someone could provide me a xml structure of units where each unit has many units etc… so I know the xml tag is “unit” but it could be “module” too or anything else… it must work generic but I do not what to ask the user entering the xml element tag name like “unit”.

Is that possible at all what I want to achieve?

Answer 1

Either way, you have to know the node name to parse the hierarchy at least you have to have a definition. IMHO, XElement is the only sort of generic XML parser around. For instance, you have a XML like this:

<module name="core">
    <modules>
        <module name="xml">
            <modules>
                <module name="reader" />
                <module name="writer" />
            </modules>
        </module>
        <module name="json">
            <modules>
                <module name="serializer" />
                <module name="deserializer" />
            </modules>
        </module>
    </modules>
</module>

As I said earlier, you should have some definitions like the root node must the hierarchical element name and the children container must be root node name + s. This is one simple way that you can allow your users to specify any node names they wish but with some constraints.

You may parse the XML using XElement like this:

XElement xElement = XElement.Load(@"path\to\your\xml\file");
string rootNodeName = xElement.Name.LocalName;
IEnumerable<XElement> xElements = xElement.Descendants(rootNodeName + "s");

And of course you can Linq the xElements and to parse the hierarchy you can recur to build your tree control.

You may take a kick start on xElement with these links below:

• http://www.dotnetperls.com/xelement
• Java2s
• http://www.joe-stevens.com/2010/01/08/linq-to-xml-tutorial/

Hope this helped.