Summary This article shows how to make the new .Net XML classes more intuitive and streamlined in a wrapper class.

Additional information

using System; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Collections; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Xml; using System.Xml.XPath; using System.Xml.Xsl; using System.IO; namespace XMLAccessNS { /// <summary> /// This code streamlines the new XML classes in .Net and tries to provide /// an intuitive user interface similar to MSXML. It allows XML to be loaded /// by either a file or string of data, that creates an XPathDocument that can either /// be queried using the XPathNodeIterator, or tranformed using the XslTransForm class. /// This class uses the XmlTextReader, which uses a streaming model which is lighter /// than corresponding DOM methods. /// </summary> public class XMLAccess : System.ComponentModel.Component { /// <summary> /// Required designer variable. /// </summary> private System.ComponentModel.Container components = null; //Declare module level objects to be used throughout the class. private XPathNavigator xpathdoc; private StringReader stream; private XmlTextReader xmlread; private XPathDocument xmldoc; private string filelocation; private string xmlstream; public XMLAccess(System.ComponentModel.IContainer container) { /// <summary> /// Required for Windows.Forms Class Composition Designer support /// </summary> container.Add(this); InitializeComponent(); // // TODO: Add any constructor code after InitializeComponent call // } public XMLAccess() { /// <summary> /// Required for Windows.Forms Class Composition Designer support /// </summary> InitializeComponent(); // // TODO: Add any constructor code after InitializeComponent call // } //Accepts string representing xml data an creates XPathDocument. public void LoadXMLString(string streamstr) { stream = new StringReader(streamstr); xmlread = new XmlTextReader(stream); xmldoc = new XPathDocument(xmlread,XmlSpace.Preserve); xpathdoc = xmldoc.CreateNavigator(); xmlstream = streamstr; filelocation = ""; } //Accepts path of xml document and creates XPathDocument. public void LoadXMLFile(string filepath) { XmlTextReader xmlread = new XmlTextReader(filepath); XPathDocument xmldoc = new XPathDocument(xmlread,XmlSpace.Preserve); xpathdoc = xmldoc.CreateNavigator(); filelocation = filepath; xmlstream = ""; } //This method takes the current XMLAccess object and converts it to //a DOM object so that it can be queried using that technique. public XmlDocument ToDOMDocument() { XmlDocument xdoc = new XmlDocument(); //loads based on file or stream. if (filelocation!="") { xdoc.Load(filelocation); } else { if (xmlstream!="") { xdoc.LoadXml(xmlstream); } } return xdoc; } //Takes the XPathDocument created by one of the 2 prior methods and //creates an iterator from an xpath string parameter. This iterator //can then be used to query to nodes. public XPathNodeIterator GetNodes(string strxpath) { XPathNodeIterator xiter = xpathdoc.Select(strxpath); return xiter; } //Based on code by Jochen Hofmann @ http://www.aspfree.com/aspnet/XSLTransform.aspx. public string TransForm(string strxslpath) { XmlDocument xsl = new XmlDocument(); xsl.Load(strxslpath); XslTransform tr = new XslTransform(); tr.Load(new XmlNodeReader(xsl)); StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(); tr.Transform(xpathdoc,null,sw); return sw.ToString(); } #region Component Designer generated code /// <summary> /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify /// the contents of this method with the code editor. /// </summary> private void InitializeComponent() { components = new System.ComponentModel.Container(); } #endregion } }