Processing XML With C# and .NET

G

gordon smith

The C# language, pronounced see sharp, is a great approach to work with Java and was essentially invented by Microsoft as part of Microsoft's .NET project. C# has a remarkably full .NET library and in actual fact uses XML as its primary technology.



Through this article I am going to have a general discussion of C# and XML processors, with a quick overview of DOM tree and XML streams.



Summary Of XML Processors



The word processing, within the perspective of an XML document or file, basically means to extract or pull out certain details from your file. Once pulled, this information is generally employed to create another XML file or simply an HTML file (known as the output), this action is typically called a transformation. Hence an xml file can be processed to yield an xml or html transformation.



The specific processor that you choose for this task is totally up to, nevertheless you should be aware that definitely not all processors are identical and your choice is extremely important, the wrong decision might effect in a harmful way on your whole job.



Internet browsers including Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox, have got built-in XML processors and can be employed to process XML files, even so they're more difficult to utilise because you have to give them processing instructions through an XSLT document, particularly for the really complex jobs.



A far more grueling option is to work with C# and Java to create your own processor, though this is time intensive and you'll need to use the Java or ..NET class libraries.

The simplest option is to employ a readymade XML processor, they come in a range of options from freeware like Syntext Serna to really dependable, feature rich commercial grade XML processors for instance (http://www.liquid-technologies.com/xml-editor.aspx)Liquid XML Studio.



Processing XML Documents



You can use either of two approaches to process your XML file referred to as offline processing and online processing. Offline means there is no need to be linked to your XML source file directly, alternatively you ought to load your document, in advance into memory as a DOM tree.



This is often regarded as a better way for processing your xml file if the xml will be processed over and over again because; whilst you lose memory you will get speed, which is all important when it comes to processing.



Online processing means you have to be linked to your XML source file so that they can process it, as a result this is often really slow, but you do use less memory. This approach might be more suited if the processing is very uncomplicated or if you're merely going to process only parts of the file..



No matter which method you adopt to process your XML file, C# is flexible enough to allow for either method via its .NET library classes.

The premise for the online processing is the XmlReader/XmlWriter abstract classes whilst the System.Xml.XmlDocument class would be the basis for offline processing.



To produce your XML document you use an XmlDocument constructor, this will likely make an empty XML document in memory. Within this XML document you can utilize nodes to build up an XML tree to virtually any complexity as well as level that you like, step-by-step.



After constructing (or loading) an XML tree, you'll be able to navigate over it and shape it with XmlDocument's properties.



To conclude, there are a variety of ways for processing XML files in C#, which includes browsers, or you might make use of an XML C# tool such as Liquid XML C# tool, which saves you time in making thousands of lines of error free code, instantaneously from the xml or schema file.
 

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