Question

I would really appreciate input on the following implementation. Goals are: produce an XElement, avoid file system reads/writes as much as possble.

private XElement ProduceApiXml(KeyValuePair<string, ConfigScriptOutput> kvp)
{
    XElement returnValue = null;
    // load xsl file
    XslCompiledTransform ct = new XslCompiledTransform();
    string xslFile = Path.Combine(_assemblyDir, ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["ConfigOutputXslFile"]);
    ct.Load(xslFile);
    XmlReader xmlToTransform = XmlReader.Create(new StringReader(kvp.Value.ScriptStdOut));
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(sb);
    XmlWriter xmlTransformed = new XmlTextWriter(sw);
    ct.Transform(xmlToTransform, xmlTransformed);

    returnValue = XElement.Parse(sb.ToString());
    return returnValue;
}

This is the first time I have used this XslCompiledTransform class, and I am thinking I could imporve on it. My real concern is should I be using something other than the StringBuilder -> StringWriter -> XmlWriter constructs to get to where I want to be? Seems like a lot of objects built up to do the task at hand – which does work. Right now, working wins, but I want to make it better.

I’d really appreciate those of you with the experience commenting constructively on what I have done here. A code review, if you will?

Thanks in advance for your time.

Answer 1

If you want to populate an XElement then use

XDocument result = new XDocument();
using (XmlWriter xw = result.CreateWriter())
{
  ct.Transform(xmlToTransform, xw);
}
returnValue = result.Root;

there is no need to use a StringWriter and no need to use the legacy XmlTextWriter, the transformation can directly populate an XContainer.

I would also wrap the use of XmlReader and StringReader into using blocks.