Question

So basically I have this XML Doc

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<items>
  <food>
    <item ItemName="Hamburger" Cost="1.50" Image="hamburger.jpg" />
    <item ItemName="Hamburger" Cost="1.50" Image="hamburger.jpg" />
    <item ItemName="Hamburger" Cost="1.50" Image="hamburger.jpg" />
    <item ItemName="Hamburger" Cost="1.50" Image="hamburger.jpg" />
  </food>
  <snaks>

  </snaks>
  <drinks>
    <item ItemName="Hamburger" Cost="1.50" Image="hamburger.jpg" />
    <item ItemName="Hamburger" Cost="1.50" Image="hamburger.jpg" />
    <item ItemName="Hamburger" Cost="1.50" Image="hamburger.jpg" />
  </drinks>
  <vitamins>

  </vitamins>
</items>

I want to be able to load the Attributes of <item> in <items><food> and do something with with each <item>. I tried something like this (This) but it only worked for the first <item> not the other 3.

Answer 1

I’d use XmlSerializer and define an object matching the document. Something like this:

public class Item
{
  [XmlAttribute("ItemName")]
  public string Name { get; set; }   

  [XmlAttribute("Cost")]
  public decimal Cost { get; set; }   

  [XmlAttribute("Image")]
  public decimal Image { get; set; }   
}

[XmlRoot("items")]
public class Items
{
  [XmlArray("food")]
  [XmlArrayItem("item")]
  public List<Item> Food { get; set; }

  [XmlArray("snaks")]
  [XmlArrayItem("item")]
  public List<Item> Snacks { get; set; }

  [XmlArray("drinks")]
  [XmlArrayItem("item")]
  public List<Item> Drinks { get; set; }     

  [XmlArray("vitamins")]
  [XmlArrayItem("item")]
  public List<Item> Vitamins { get; set; }
}

Use it like this:

public class Example
{
  static void Main()
  {
     using (Stream s = File.OpenRead("myfile.xml"))
     {
        Items myItems = (Items) new XmlSerializer(typeof (Items)).Deserialize(s);
     }
  }
}