Question

I want to read XML like this.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<parent>
  <path>
    <pathPoints>
     <point>
        2 0
      </point>
      <point>
        2 1
      </point>
        3 1
      <point>
        3 2
      </point>
      <point>
        4 2
      </point>
      <point>
        4 4
      </point>
      <point>
        3 4
      </point>
      <point>
        3 5
      </point>
      <point>
      2 5
      </point>
      <point>
        2 7
      </point>
      <point>
          7 7
      </point>
      <point>
          7 5
      </point>
      <point>
        10 5
      </point>
      <point>
        10 2
      <point>
      </point>
      15 2
      </point>
      <point>
        15 6
      </point>
      <point>
        16 6
      </point>
      <point>
        16 7
      </point>
      <point>
        17 7
      </point>
      <point>
        17 10
      </point>
      <point>
        19 10
      </point>
    </pathPoints>
  </parent>
</path>

And now I’m trying to read it:

        paths = (from path in doc.Descendants("path")
                 select new AIPath()
                 {
                     waypoints = (from i in path.Descendants("pathPoints")
                     {
                         int j = Convert.ToInt32(i.Element("point").Value),
                     }).ToList();
                 }
                 ).ToList();

My AIPath contains a list of vector2 called waypoints.

What I want to know is what I’m doing wrong. I want to create a new path everytime it changes which path it’s looking at, which looks fine. What I’m confused about though is waht to do next. After the waypoints = (from i in path.Descendants(“pathPoints”), I’m expecting i have to do something but I’m clueless as to what.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edit

One or two details I forgot to add.

public class AIPath
{
    //public Vector2
    public List<Vector2> waypoints { get; set; }
    public int linkNumber { get; set; }
    public int[] potentialLinks { get; set; }
}

Answer 1

Currently, your XML output is relatively hard to parse. I would rewrite your code like this:

public sealed class AIPath
{
    // TODO: Consider trying to make this immutable, or
    // at least not exposing the collections so widely. Exposing an array
    // property is almost always a bad idea.
    public List<Vector2> Waypoints { get; set; }
    public int LinkNumber { get; set; }
    public int[] PotentialLinks { get; set; }

    public XElement ToElement()
    {
        return new XElement("path",
            WayPoints.Select(v2 => new XElement("point",
                                       new XAttribute("X", (int) v2.X),
                                       new XAttribute("Y", (int) v2.Y))));
    }

    public static AIPath FromXElement(XElement path)
    {
        return new AIPath
        {
            WayPoints = path.Elements("point")
                            .Select(p => new Vector2((int) p.Attribute("X"),
                                                     (int) p.Attribute("Y")))
                            .ToList();
        };
    }
}

Then:

paths = doc.Descendants("path")
           .Select(x => AIPath.FromXElement(x))
           .ToList();