Vfrdtyky

What is the most efficiant way to get XML nodes of a specific parent each time?

Let's assume i have a XML that contains peoples' names, and each name node has favorite food's nodes and favorite drinks' node.
I have a system that let the user choose the people he want to get data for, and the system querying it by name and show it to the user after button click.

So is it better to split the main XML to xml for each person at the beginning of the program and then run just on the relevant person's xml, or maybe use doc.GetElementsByTagName("food") and doc.GetElementsByTagName("drink") by using some ifother conditions?

Thanks!!

XML example:
The user can choose "David" and get a list of his fave food and drinks, then choose John... etc.

<root>

  <David>

    <FAVE_FOOD>

      <food value = "hamburger"/>

      <food value = "banana"/>

    </FAVE_FOOD>

    <FAVE_Drinks>

      <drink value = "water"/>

    </FAVE_Drinks>

  </David>

  <John>

    <FAVE_FOOD>

      <food value = "icecream"/>

    </FAVE_FOOD>

    <FAVE_Drinks>

      <drink value = "7up"/>

    </FAVE_Drinks>

  </John>

etc...

</root>

One way is to parse your XML with XDocument.

Here i created a custom function GetUserData. You need to pass username like David to this function and then this function can return you the list of food names and list of drink name.

Console app for demonstration purpose.

class Program

{

    static void Main(string args)

    {



        XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(@"Your path to xml");                //<= Load xml



        FoodData foodData = GetUserData(doc, "David");                      //<= Pass "David" to function



        foodData.FoodNames.ForEach(x => Console.WriteLine("Food: " + x));   //<= Print food name list

        Console.WriteLine();

        foodData.DrinkNames.ForEach(x => Console.WriteLine("Drink: " + x)); //<= Print drink name list



        Console.ReadLine();

    }





    public static FoodData GetUserData(XDocument doc, string userName)

    {

        var data = doc.Root.Elements(userName).Elements();



        FoodData foodData = new FoodData

        {

            FoodNames = data.Where(x => x.Name == "FAVE_FOOD").Descendants().Select(x => x.Attribute("value").Value).ToList(),

            DrinkNames = data.Where(x => x.Name == "FAVE_Drinks").Descendants().Select(x => x.Attribute("value").Value).ToList()

        };



        return foodData;

    }

}



public class FoodData

{

    public List<string> FoodNames { get; set; }

    public List<string> DrinkNames { get; set; }

}

Output:

Edit:

If you want to get all the food and drinks in one list (don't separate it to food list and drinks list).

Then simply get all food data and drink data into one list and return that list like

public static List<string> GetUserData(XDocument doc, string userName)

{

    List<string> data = doc.Root.Elements(userName).Elements().Elements().Select(x => x.Attribute("value").Value).ToList();

    return data;

}

And you can call above method like.

List<string> data = GetUserData(doc, "David");

I like using xml linq and putting into a dictionary with the key being the people names

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Xml;

using System.Xml.Linq;



namespace ConsoleApplication83

{

    class Program

    {

        const string FILENAME = @"c:temptest.xml";

        static void Main(string args)

        {

            XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(FILENAME);



            Dictionary<string, object> dict = doc.Root.Elements()

                .GroupBy(x => x.Name.LocalName, y => new

                {

                    drinks = y.Descendants("drink").Select(z => (string)z.Attribute("value")).ToList(),

                    foods = y.Descendants("food").Select(z => (string)z.Attribute("value")).ToList()

                })

                .ToDictionary(x => x.Key, y => (object)y.FirstOrDefault());







        }





    }



}