XML Parsing using LINQ to fetch attribute along with contents

Question

Here is my XML,

<content id = "C1">
<paragraph >
      <Info />
      <contentValue>Content1</contentValue>
</paragraph>

<paragraph>
      <Info />
      <contentValue>Content2</contentValue>
</paragraph>
<content>

<content id = "C2">
<paragraph >
      <Info />
      <contentValue>Content3</contentValue>
</paragraph>

<paragraph>
      <Info />
      <contentValue>Content4</contentValue>
</paragraph>

<paragraph>
      <Info />
      <contentValue>Content5</contentValue>
</paragraph>
<content>

I need to parse through each of <content> tags and fetch the values of <contentvalue> tags and store it in a List.

I'm using following code but, values of <contentvalue> tags are concatinated like 'Content1Content2'

var xdoc = XDocument.Load(path);
var Contents = xdoc.Descendants("content").Select(c => (string)c).ToArray();

Siva Charan · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-25 07:59:30Z

1

Couple of things I noticed:

Your XML is not in a correct format
You are trying to select Content node and render it as string, which is wrong

XML:

<root>
    <content id="C1">
        <paragraph>
            <Info/>
            <contentValue>Content1</contentValue>
        </paragraph>
        <paragraph>
            <Info/>
            <contentValue>Content2</contentValue>
        </paragraph>
    </content>
    <content id="C2">
        <paragraph>
            <Info/>
            <contentValue>Content3</contentValue>
        </paragraph>
        <paragraph>
            <Info/>
            <contentValue>Content4</contentValue>
        </paragraph>
        <paragraph>
            <Info/>
            <contentValue>Content5</contentValue>
        </paragraph>
    </content>
</root>

Code:

var Contents = xdoc.Descendants("content").Descendants("paragraph").Select(i => i.Element("contentValue").Value).ToList();

Above code exactly selects contentValue node under paragraph.

edited Nov 25, 2013 at 7:59

answered Nov 25, 2013 at 7:51

Siva Charan

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2 Comments

ragmn Over a year ago

Siva Charan - Also require the contentID along with the values.

Siva Charan Over a year ago

@Raghavendra: In that case, what is the expected output on the list

Andrei V · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-25 09:52:50Z

1

If you don't want your <contentValue>s to be grouped by the <content> tag, just try:

V1

var Contents = xdoc.Descendants("contentValue").Select(c => (string)c).ToArray();

or V2

var Contents = xdoc.Root.XPathSelectElements("content/paragraph/contentValue")
       .Select(x => x.Value).ToList();

NOTE that for using the V2 solution you need to add a reference to the System.Xml.XPath namespace.

(This next section represents a different solution, for a different but similar case, provided for reference purposes) Otherwise, if you need to get the values grouped by the <content> tag, you could try:

var grouped = xdoc.Descendants("contentValue")
       .Select(x => new { PNode = x.Ancestors("content")
       .FirstOrDefault().Attribute("id").Value, CNode = x.Value })
       .GroupBy(x => x.PNode).ToDictionary(x => x.Key, y => y.ToList());

This then can be iterated as follows:

foreach (var group in grouped)
{
     Console.WriteLine("content id = " + group.Key);
     foreach (var singleCValue in group.Value)
     {
          Console.WriteLine(singleCValue.CNode);
     }
}

edited Nov 25, 2013 at 9:52

answered Nov 25, 2013 at 7:47

Andrei V

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5 Comments

Siva Charan Over a year ago

Why are you doing this in such a complex way. Refer my answer

Andrei V Over a year ago

@SivaCharan, please read my post carefully. The solution to the question is the very first line of code. It iterated the descendants of the node only once, which is not complex at all. You iterate them twice. I start my post stating that the solution to come is for the case in which @Raghavendra does not need the values grouped by the <content> node. The second part of my answer provides a solution for grouping the <contentValue> node values by the corresponding <content> node. Therefore I'm providing two solutions, for two very distinct situations, as the OP did not specify the case.

Siva Charan Over a year ago

Your first line of code itself wrong. It will fail, if there is a contentValue node outside paragraph node. Please have a understanding of how xdoc.Descendants("contentValue") works.

Andrei V Over a year ago

@SivaCharan, please be respectful. I did not insult you, and I used an appropriate tone. My answer is in the context of the provided XML.

Siva Charan Over a year ago

My friend I'm helping you in understand the concept. So I don't have any intention to hurt you :). Sorry if I have make you to feel bad.

Nitin Varpe · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-25 08:39:21Z

0

I guess your tags are not well formed. You can do something like this.

 XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(path);

            IList<string> list=new List<string>();

            IEnumerable<XElement> contentElements = doc.Descendants("content");//this get all "content" tags
            IEnumerable<XElement> contentValueElements = contentElements.Descendants("contentValue");//this get all "contentValue" tags

            foreach (XElement i in contentValueElements)
            {

                    list.Add(i.Value);
            }

answered Nov 25, 2013 at 8:39

Nitin Varpe

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