Question

I would like to clone a Xml element, insert it to the end of the element list and save the document. Could someone explain how it is done in linq to xml

Xml

  <Folders>
    <Folder ID="1" Name="Music" PathValue="Root/Music" ParentId="0"></Folder>
    <Folder ID="2" Name="Rock" PathValue="Root/Rock" ParentId="1"></Folder>
  </Folders>

Context

think of the xml element Folder as Virtual folder on disk. I would like to copy the folder Rock into music hence the resulting xml should become as below

Result Required

  <Folders>
    <Folder ID="1" Name="Music" PathValue="Root/Music" ParentId="0"></Folder>
    <Folder ID="2" Name="Rock" PathValue="Root/Rock" ParentId="0"></Folder>
    <Folder ID="3" Name="Rock" PathValue="Root/Music/Rock" ParentId="1"></Folder>
  </Folders>

Operations to be carried out

1. Clone the source node ( Done #1)
2. Clone the other nodes inside source node ( Don’t know how to do it #2)
3. Generate new ID for the nodes inside #2 and change pathvalue ( I know how to do this)
4. Insert the node #1 and nodes from #2 ( Don’t know)

1

var source = new XElement((from folder in _xmlDataSource.Descendants("Folders").Descendants("Folder") where
wallet.Attribute("ID").Value.Equals(sourceWalletId, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase) select wallet).First());
//source is a clone not the reference to node.

2

var directChildren = (from folder in _xmlDataSource.Descendants("Folders").Descendants("Folder") where folder.Attribute("PathValue").Value.Contains(sourcePathValue) select folder);
//How do i clone this

Question

Could someone help me with #2 and #4?

Answer 1

You know about the constructor that takes another XElement to create a copy of it, have you tried this?

var copiedChildren = from folder in _xmlDataSource.Descendants("Folders").Descendants("Folder") 
                     where folder.Attribute("PathValue").Value.Contains(sourcePathValue) 
                     select new XElement(folder);

as you have already cloned source, you can insert those into that node (assuming they should be children of the copied node)