Need help creating another XML file

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mary Smith
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Mary Smith

I want to create a new XML file from another XML file. The original file will be stored on the hard drive and it is about 3mb. I do not need everything from the original XML file so the new one will be much smaller and easier to manage. I only need to do this when new data has been added to the original XML file. Here is a sample of what I have.

Original XML file

<movielist>
<movie>
<index>1</index>
<title>Casino Royale</title>
<cast>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Daniel Craig</displayname>
</person>
<character>James Bond</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Eva Green</displayname>
</person>
<character>Vesper Lynd</character>
</star>
</cast>
</movie>
<movie>
<index>2</index>
<title>Spider-Man</title>
<cast>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Tobey Maguire</displayname>
</person>
<character>Spider-Man/Peter Parker</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Kirsten Dunst</displayname>
</person>
<character>Mary Jane Watson</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Willem Dafoe</displayname>
</person>
<character>Green Goblin/Norman Osborn</character>
</star>
</cast>
</movie>
</movielist>

Below is how I want the new file to look by combining the displayname and character in the cast section.

New XML file

<movielist>
<movie>
<index>1</index>
<title>Casino Royale</title>
<cast1>Daniel Craig - James Bond</cast1>
<cast2>Eva Green - Vesper Lynd</cast2>
</movie>
<movie>
<index>2</index>
<title>Spider-Man</title>
<cast1>Tobey Maguire - Spider-Man/Peter Parker</cast1>
<cast2>Kirsten Dunst - Mary Jane Watson</cast2>
<cast3>Willem Dafoe - Green Goblin/Norman Osborn</cast3>
</movie>
</movielist>

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Mary
 
Mary said:
I want to create a new XML file from another XML file. The original file
will be stored on the hard drive and it is about 3mb. I do not need
everything from the original XML file so the new one will be much
smaller and easier to manage. I only need to do this when new data has
been added to the original XML file. Here is a sample of what I have.

Original XML file

<movielist>
<movie>
<index>1</index>
<title>Casino Royale</title>
<cast>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Daniel Craig</displayname>
</person>
<character>James Bond</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Eva Green</displayname>
</person>
<character>Vesper Lynd</character>
</star>
</cast>
</movie>
<movie>
<index>2</index>
<title>Spider-Man</title>
<cast>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Tobey Maguire</displayname>
</person>
<character>Spider-Man/Peter Parker</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Kirsten Dunst</displayname>
</person>
<character>Mary Jane Watson</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Willem Dafoe</displayname>
</person>
<character>Green Goblin/Norman Osborn</character>
</star>
</cast>
</movie>
</movielist>

*Below is how I want the new file to look by combining the displayname
and character in the cast section.*

New XML file

<movielist>
<movie>
<index>1</index>
<title>Casino Royale</title>
<cast1>Daniel Craig - James Bond</cast1>
<cast2>Eva Green - Vesper Lynd</cast2>
</movie>
<movie>
<index>2</index>
<title>Spider-Man</title>
<cast1>Tobey Maguire - Spider-Man/Peter Parker</cast1>
<cast2>Kirsten Dunst - Mary Jane Watson</cast2>
<cast3>Willem Dafoe - Green Goblin/Norman Osborn</cast3>
</movie>
</movielist>

Any help will be greatly appreciated
Click to expand...

You read the old XML into an XmlDocument and either:
1) iterate through it via C# code and construct a new
XmlDocument with what you want and store that to disk
or:
2) use XSLT to transform it to the new XML you want

Arne
 
This should be exactly what you're looking for:
http://sholliday.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!A68482B9628A842A!148.entry


I want to create a new XML file from another XML file. The original file will be stored on the hard drive and it is about 3mb. I do not need everything from the original XML file so the new one will be much smaller and easier to manage. I only need to do this when new data has been added to the original XML file. Here is a sample of what I have.

Original XML file

<movielist>
<movie>
<index>1</index>
<title>Casino Royale</title>
<cast>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Daniel Craig</displayname>
</person>
<character>James Bond</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Eva Green</displayname>
</person>
<character>Vesper Lynd</character>
</star>
</cast>
</movie>
<movie>
<index>2</index>
<title>Spider-Man</title>
<cast>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Tobey Maguire</displayname>
</person>
<character>Spider-Man/Peter Parker</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Kirsten Dunst</displayname>
</person>
<character>Mary Jane Watson</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Willem Dafoe</displayname>
</person>
<character>Green Goblin/Norman Osborn</character>
</star>
</cast>
</movie>
</movielist>

Below is how I want the new file to look by combining the displayname and character in the cast section.

New XML file

<movielist>
<movie>
<index>1</index>
<title>Casino Royale</title>
<cast1>Daniel Craig - James Bond</cast1>
<cast2>Eva Green - Vesper Lynd</cast2>
</movie>
<movie>
<index>2</index>
<title>Spider-Man</title>
<cast1>Tobey Maguire - Spider-Man/Peter Parker</cast1>
<cast2>Kirsten Dunst - Mary Jane Watson</cast2>
<cast3>Willem Dafoe - Green Goblin/Norman Osborn</cast3>
</movie>
</movielist>

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Mary
 
Other posts have mentioned the options... just to mention that DOM
models (such as XmlDocument) can (depending on the data) take
significantly more memory that the original data-file, which might be
worth considering since your original file is not trivial (3Mb).

XmlDocument presents a simple model, so perhaps just benchmark it?
Load the data into XmlDocument (.Load) and see how the memory usage
jumps? If it is significant, XmlReader and XmlWriter might be a good
way to go.

This would also be a simple xslt operation, which could be useful as I
believe this uses (if given a stream or XmlReader) the more light-
weight readonly DOM model (the class name escapes me at the moment...)

Marc
 
What will be the best way to change the cast section?

OLD XML
<cast>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Daniel Craig</displayname>
</person>
<character>James Bond</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Eva Green</displayname>
</person>
<character>Vesper Lynd</character>
</star>
</cast>

NEW XML
<cast1>Daniel Craig - James Bond</cast1>
<cast2>Eva Green - Vesper Lynd</cast2>

I am currently using the following code.

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("old.xml");
XmlTextWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter("new.xml", null);
writer.Formatting = Formatting.Indented;
writer.WriteStartElement("movielist");

XmlNodeList nodes = doc.SelectNodes("movielist/movie");

foreach (XmlNode node in nodes)
{
writer.WriteStartElement("movie");

XmlNode titleNode = node.SelectSingleNode("title");
writer.WriteElementString("title", titleNode.InnerText);

XmlNode indexNode = node.SelectSingleNode("index");
writer.WriteElementString("index", indexNode.InnerText);
}

writer.WriteEndElement();
writer.WriteEndElement();
writer.Close();

Thanks for the replies
Mary


I want to create a new XML file from another XML file. The original file will be stored on the hard drive and it is about 3mb. I do not need everything from the original XML file so the new one will be much smaller and easier to manage. I only need to do this when new data has been added to the original XML file. Here is a sample of what I have.

Original XML file

<movielist>
<movie>
<index>1</index>
<title>Casino Royale</title>
<cast>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Daniel Craig</displayname>
</person>
<character>James Bond</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Eva Green</displayname>
</person>
<character>Vesper Lynd</character>
</star>
</cast>
</movie>
<movie>
<index>2</index>
<title>Spider-Man</title>
<cast>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Tobey Maguire</displayname>
</person>
<character>Spider-Man/Peter Parker</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Kirsten Dunst</displayname>
</person>
<character>Mary Jane Watson</character>
</star>
<star>
<person>
<displayname>Willem Dafoe</displayname>
</person>
<character>Green Goblin/Norman Osborn</character>
</star>
</cast>
</movie>
</movielist>

Below is how I want the new file to look by combining the displayname and character in the cast section.

New XML file

<movielist>
<movie>
<index>1</index>
<title>Casino Royale</title>
<cast1>Daniel Craig - James Bond</cast1>
<cast2>Eva Green - Vesper Lynd</cast2>
</movie>
<movie>
<index>2</index>
<title>Spider-Man</title>
<cast1>Tobey Maguire - Spider-Man/Peter Parker</cast1>
<cast2>Kirsten Dunst - Mary Jane Watson</cast2>
<cast3>Willem Dafoe - Green Goblin/Norman Osborn</cast3>
</movie>
</movielist>

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Mary
 
Can I offer something? Perhaps try the xslt route first... very simple
and easy to maintain... and not as memory hungry as XmlDocument.

The necessary xslt file follows; the code to invoke it (via C#) is as
simple as:

==== program.cs ====

using System;
using System.Xml.Xsl;
class Program {
static void Main() {
// cache and re-use as necessary
XslCompiledTransform xslt = new XslCompiledTransform();
xslt.Load("transform.xslt");
// invoke
xslt.Transform("movies.xml", "out.xml");
}
}

==== transform.xslt ====

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
xmlns:msxsl="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xslt"
exclude-result-prefixes="msxsl">

<xsl:output method="xml" indent="yes"/>
<xsl:template match="movielist">
<movielist>
<xsl:apply-templates select="movie"/>
</movielist>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="movie">
<movie>
<index><xsl:value-of select="index"/></index>
<title><xsl:value-of select="title"/></title>
<xsl:for-each select="cast/star">
<xsl:element name="cast{position()}">
<xsl:value-of select="concat(person/displayname,' -
',character)"/>
</xsl:element>
</xsl:for-each>
</movie>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
 
I concur, and that is what my above post suggests.

Try xsl. Its MUCH easier to maintain....and will probably perform better.
 
Thank you this was exactly what I needed. The output is very fast.

Thanks again
Mary
 
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