Question

I’m working on a project that requires me to build a game’s rooms, items and NPC in a separate database. I’ve chosen XML, but something prevents me from properly parsing the XML in my C# code. What am I doing wrong?

My errors are these:

System.xml.xmlnode does not contain a definition for HasAttribute 

(this goes for GetAttribute as well) and no extension method accepting 'HasAttribute' accepting a first argument of type System.Xml.XmlNode ?

This also goes for GetParentNode, and my very last line

string isMoveableStr = xmlRoom.GetAttribute("isMoveable");

somehow goes:

the name xmlRoom does not exist in the current context

Here’s the method:

public void loadFromFile()
    {
        XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();              // create an xml document object in memory.
        xmlDoc.Load("gamedata.xml");                         // load the XML document from the specified file into the object in memory.

        // Get rooms, NPCs, and items.
        XmlNodeList xmlRooms = xmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("room");
        XmlNodeList xmlNPCs = xmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("npc");
        XmlNodeList xmlItems = xmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("item");

        foreach(XmlNode xmlRoom in xmlRooms) {               // defaults for room:

        string roomID = ""; 
        string roomDescription = "this a standard room, nothing special about it.";                  

        if( !xmlRoom.HasAttribute("ID") )                   //http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/acwfyhc7.aspx
        {              
        Console.WriteLine("A room was in the xml file without an ID attribute. Correct this to use the room"); 
        continue;                                       //skips remaining code in loop 

            } else {
             roomID = xmlRoom.GetAttribute("id");           //http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/acwfyhc7.aspx
            }

        if( xmlRoom.hasAttribute("description") )              
        {
            roomDescription = xmlRoom.GetAttribute("description");
        }

        Room myRoom = new Room(roomDescription, roomID); //creates a room
        rooms.Add(myRoom); //adds to list with all rooms in game ;)

            } foreach(XmlNode xmlNPC in xmlNPCs)
            { bool isMoveable = false;

        if( !xmlNPC.hasAttribute("id") )
        {
            Console.WriteLine("A NPC was in the xml file, without an id attribute, correct this to spawn the npc");
            continue; //skips remaining code in loop
        }

        XmlNode inRoom = xmlNPC.getParentNode();
        string roomID = inRoom.GetAttribute("id");

        if( xmlNPC.hasAttribute("isMoveable") )
        {
            string isMoveableStr = xmlRoom.GetAttribute("isMoveable");
            if( isMoveableStr == "true" )
            isMoveable = true;
            }

        }
    }

Answer 1

System.Xml.XmlElement has the function you are looking for. You are getting XMLNode’s. You will need to cast the nodes to XmlElement to get that function.

xmlElement = (System.Xml.XmlElement)xmlRoom;