Reading / Writing XML files?

[mikeb]

Maybe I'm researching this too much... ? But after all this reading, I'm
still not sure if reading from and writing to XML files is feasible with
Compact Framework development (VB.net).

I have developed a PPC app that communicates through a SQLserver. However,
now the spec requires that we give the operators an option to send/receive
that same data via XML files for remote locations. The XML files might even
be placed on diskette and mailed to and from the host system location.

I'm reading that XML is supported, that it isn't supported and that its
partially supported in the compact framework. Which is true??

At this point, it doesn't look like I'll have any control over the XML file
specs. But if I did (or do), are there any specs that I should make sure we
stick by? I'm asking this after reading about integrated schemas, separate
schemas, etc.

Does the compact framework (or even with the use of OpenNetCF) accommodate
building and reading XML files?

Thanks.

 

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

Feasible, sure. How much information are you reading/writing? I can't
imagine that on any platform XML is going to be performance comparable with
a binary file, for example, no matter what tools you're using.

Well, all three are probably accurate. You'd have to be more specific to
get a definitive answer. Windows CE further complicates trying to give this
sort of an answer because it is modular. You might have two devices running
the same revision of Windows CE, 4.2, say, and those two devices might be as
different as night and day. One might have an 800x600 color display, a
keyboard, a mouse, a touch screen, network interface, USB host support,
PCMCIA, Internet Explorer in the box, Media Player in the box, Terminal
Services Client support, etc., etc. and the other one might have none of
those (literally, no display). They're both still CE.

Here's the text of a single page in the VS.NET 2003 help concerning the
what-does-.NET CF-support-with-respect-to-XML topic:

----
The .NET Compact Framework provides basic XML functionality including the
XML Document Object Model (DOM). To save space, the following XML components
are not supported:

a.. XML schema validation
b.. XmlDataDocument class
c.. xpath queries, including node selecting methods that take xpath
parameters
d.. Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT)
In addition, the .NET Compact Framework does not support using relative
paths using the file:// URI scheme. Specify absolute path information when
using the DataSet.ReadXML method that takes a string of the file name as a
parameter.