Question

I’m using xmlreader to read an XML-file. I want to identify whether an element has child nodes or not.

Currently, I use the IsEmptyElement method to find whether there are child elements. I found out that, even if the tag contains text data and not an element, it returns as true.

if (!file.IsEmptyElement) {
    elem.subElems.Add(readXml(file));
}

How van I fix this issue using the xml reader? Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Answer 1

If you just have to check, use XmlDocument instead… I found it to be easier to understand and code.

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml("YourDocument");

XmlNode root = doc.FirstChild;

if (root.HasChildNodes)
{
    // Do something...
}

Reader:

using (XmlReader reader = ...)
{
    while (reader.Read())
    {
        if ((reader.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element) && (reader.Name == ...))
        {
            Int32 childrenCount = CountChildred(reader, XmlNodeType.Element);
            // Your code...

public static Int32 CountChildred(XmlReader node, XmlNodeType type)
{
    Int32 count = 0;
    Int32 currentDepth = node.Depth;
    Int32 validDepth = currentDepth + 1;

    while (node.Read() && (node.Depth != currentDepth))
    {
        if ((node.NodeType == type) && (node.Depth == validDepth))
            ++count;
    }

    return count;
}