Reading in XML in C# - Grab specific Element

Question

I'm reading in some XML and displaying it in a DataGridView which works great.

However, my life would be 10x easier if I could grab specific Elements and read their content. (Im using XmlReader)

Additionally, is there a simple way to loop through an element? I need to grab the count and then loop through each "Facility" but I cant seem to get this working properly. Adding another "While(read)" in wasnt a great solution.

I would prefer not to switch to another reader at this time, I'm in to deep with this one at the moment.

XML Data:

    <data>
    <count>2</count>
    <facility>
        <typeId>1</typeId>
        <type>Beds</type>
        <quantity>0</quantity>
        <description>null</description>
    </facility>
    <facility>
        <typeId>2</typeId>
        <type>EDBeds</type>
        <quantity>0</quantity>
        <description>null</description>
    </facility>
</data>

Code:

while (xr.Read())
{
    if (xr.Name.Equals("count"))
    {
        valueName.Text = "We currently have " + xr.ReadElementContentAsString() + " facilities open.";
    }
    while (xr.ReadToFollowing("facility"))
    {
        //Add a new row for data if we are at a new Facility element
        if (xr.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element && xr.Name == "facility")
        {
            row = generalData.Rows.Add();
            col = 0;
        }
        //Loop through current facility Element
    }
}

Answer 1

See this post why you should prefer XDocument over XmlReader. As it states the API for XDocument is alot easier and supports 'LINQ To XML'. XmlReader is has become obsolete since it's out dated and contains bugs.

var xml = @"
<data>
    <count>2</count>
    <facility>
        <typeId>1</typeId>
        <type>Beds</type>
        <quantity>0</quantity>
        <description>null</description>
    </facility>
    <facility>
        <typeId>2</typeId>
        <type>EDBeds</type>
        <quantity>0</quantity>
        <description>null</description>
    </facility>
</data>";

var xDocument = XDocument.Load( new StringReader( xml ) );
var facilityElements = xDocument.Descendants().Where( x => x.Name == "facility" );

// Count the elements
var count = facilityElements.Count();

foreach ( var facilityElement in facilityElements )
{
    // Handle elements
}

// Adds an facility element
var facility = new XElement( "facility" );
var typeId = new XElement( "typeId" );
typeId.SetValue(3);
facility.Add( typeId );
xDocument.Element( "data" ).Add( facility );