Question

I want users to be able to export data as an XML file. Of course I want them to be able to later on import that same XML file however they always could change it or it could be a different XML file.

So I want to validate the XML file to check if it is in the format that I expect. So I guess I would need something like a schema to check just that it has to be through code.

So if I expect

<Root>
 <Something>
    <SomethingElse> </SomethingElse>
 </Something>
</Root>

I don’t want some other format to be in the file other then the one I expect.

Also how would I validate fields? Like say I require that there must be some text in between tags. If it is blank the file is not valid.

So how could I do this?

Edit

I decided to use XML serialization so I know it will through an exception if it is the wrong format and ignore stuff that does not work. However I am not sure should I just go through it and C# to validate each of the records or should I try to make an xml schema to do it.

If I would want to do it through an xml schema with xml serialization how would that work? Like Do I first do something like I seen in the responses then de serialize it? Or how would I do it?

Answer 1

Here’s a code snippet that you can use to do so:

using (FileStream stream = File.OpenRead(xsdFilepath))
{
    XmlReaderSettings settings = new XmlReaderSettings();

    XmlSchema schema = XmlSchema.Read(stream, OnXsdSyntaxError);
    settings.ValidationType = ValidationType.Schema;
    settings.Schemas.Add(schema);
    settings.ValidationEventHandler += OnXmlSyntaxError;

    using (XmlReader validator = XmlReader.Create(xmlPath, settings))
    {
        // Validate the entire xml file
        while (validator.Read()) ;
    }
}

The OnXmlSyntaxError function will be called when a syntax error occur.