suggested ways to manipulate XML files in .Net?

[Steve Hershoff]

Hi everyone,

I'm going to manipulate some XML files in my next project-- crawl through
the tags, compare if file X has the same nodes as file Y, and if not, what
the differences are and who's missing what. I'll also be comparing values
between nodes in the two files, for when both documents do have the same
named nodes. What .Net classes should I be looking at to accomplish these
tasks? Thanks a bunch.

[Martin Honnen]

Steve Hershoff wrote:

I'm going to manipulate some XML files in my next project-- crawl through
the tags, compare if file X has the same nodes as file Y, and if not, what
the differences are and who's missing what. I'll also be comparing values
between nodes in the two files, for when both documents do have the same
named nodes. What .Net classes should I be looking at to accomplish these
tasks?

Well there are lots of ways, Xml(Text)Reader is fast forward only pull
parsing that does not consume much resources even if you read through
big files.
XPathDocument reads the complete document into a tree structure
optimized for XPath navigation which is read only.
Then there is XmlDocument which also reads the complete document into a
tree structure but then allows manipulation of the tree and saving back.

If you want to compare XML files then the XML Diff and Patch tool
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/XML/XMLDownloads/default.aspx>
might be interesting for you.
--

Martin Honnen --- MVP XML
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Steve Hershoff]

Thanks, Martin. I'll look into the XML Diff and Patch tools.

-Steve

>
Well there are lots of ways, Xml(Text)Reader is fast forward only pull
parsing that does not consume much resources even if you read through big
files.
XPathDocument reads the complete document into a tree structure optimized
for XPath navigation which is read only.
Then there is XmlDocument which also reads the complete document into a
tree structure but then allows manipulation of the tree and saving back.

If you want to compare XML files then the XML Diff and Patch tool
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/XML/XMLDownloads/default.aspx>
might be interesting for you.
--

Martin Honnen --- MVP XML
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/