Here is a simple code example showing how to take a VB Class object and us Xml.Serialization to turn it into an XML string. I had a little trouble finding this code because all the examples wanted to write the XML to disk using a StreamWriter… I needed it in memory as a string

The resulting string looks like  this:

In the last example we took a simple XML document and deserialized it into a class. This example takes that idea one step further. Our source XML document is a standard ‘order’ with an Order Header and Order Detail sections. The class that we’re going to send it into needs to have a Generic List (of Item) to hold the order details.

Also, in the last example each item in the class was decorated with an <XElement> directive. In this example we’ve remove those and placed a <Serializable> directive at the top of the class.

Also note that the <XmlAttribute> was applied to the OrderNumber property, and it got correctly picked up as an attribute in the XML document

I get to see quite a bit of XML, and my path in the past has always been to use LINQ to iterate through the document and read it into a class. Then I’d use the class to do whatever work I need to do.

This code takes advantage of the XmlSerializer.Deserialize method.

To run this code, create a Windows Forms application and drop this code into the form code behind. It is complete and should run unmodified.

Note that the OrderedItem class and the getXMLDoc function both make use of namespaces for two of the elements, so we show how to code this both with and without namespace references.

InsertAfter gave me fits today. This code:

    Sub test2()
        Try
            'The reference node is not a child of this node
            Dim xmlDoc As New XmlDocument
            xmlDoc.LoadXml("<root><doc><node1>1</node1><node3/></doc></root>")

            Dim xnNode1 As XmlNode = xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("root/doc/node1")
            Dim xnNode2 As XmlNode = xmlDoc.CreateElement("node2")
            xnNode2.InnerXml = "steve"
            xmlDoc.InsertAfter(xnNode2, xnNode1)

            MsgBox(xmlDoc.ToString)
        Catch ex As Exception
            MsgBox(ex.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub

Always returns ‘The reference node is not a child of this node’. Grrr.

This technique works, though:

    Sub test()
        Try
            'The reference node is not a child of this node
            Dim xmlDoc As New XmlDocument
            xmlDoc.LoadXml("<root><doc><node1>1</node1><node3/></doc></root>")

            Dim xnNode1 As XmlNode = xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("root/doc/node1")
            Dim xnParent As XmlNode = xnNode1.ParentNode

            Dim xnNode2 As XmlNode = xmlDoc.CreateElement("node2")
            xnNode2.InnerXml = "steve"
            xnParent.InsertAfter(xnNode2, xnNode1)

            MsgBox(xmlDoc.ToString)
        Catch ex As Exception
            MsgBox(ex.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub

Task:

Given this XML document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<root>
  <currentProfile>default</currentProfile>
  <profiles>
    <profile name="default">
      <scriptFolder>C:\myScripts</scriptFolder>
    </profile>
    <profile name="special">
      <scriptFolder>C:\specialScripts</scriptFolder>
    </profile>
  </profiles>
</root>

We need to get the value of the ‘scriptFolder’ node for the ‘default’ profile.

Here’s the code:

Imports System.Xml

Dim xmldoc As New XmlDocument
xmldoc.Load(Application.StartupPath & "\Profiles.xml")

Dim strQuery As String
strQuery = "root/profiles/profile[@name='default']/scriptFolder"

Dim xnScriptFolder As XmlNode = xmldoc.SelectSingleNode(strQuery)

Today’s task has to do with an XML document that has the form:

<OutboundReports>
    <InvoiceNotice>
        <InvoiceNoticeHeader InvoiceDate="20100607" InvoiceType="Invoice" invoiceID="60252726" purpose="PR">
        </InvoiceNoticeHeader>
    </InvoiceNotice>
    <InvoiceNotice>
        <InvoiceNoticeHeader InvoiceDate="20100607" InvoiceType="Invoice" invoiceID="60252727" purpose="PR">
        </InvoiceNoticeHeader>
    </InvoiceNotice>
</OutboundReports>

We need to move the InvoiceDate, InvoiceType, and invoiceID attributes to ‘nodes’, so that our integration program will see them, the current version will not read attributes. Here’s what we want it to look like in the end:

<OutboundReports>
    <InvoiceNotice>
        <InvoiceNoticeHeader InvoiceDate="20100607" InvoiceType="Invoice" invoiceID="60252726" purpose="PR">
            <InvoiceDate>20100607</InvoiceDate>
            <InvoiceType>Invoice</InvoiceType>
            <InvoiceID>60252726</InvoiceID>
        </InvoiceNoticeHeader>
    </InvoiceNotice>
    <InvoiceNotice>
        <InvoiceNoticeHeader InvoiceDate="20100607" InvoiceType="Invoice" invoiceID="60252727" purpose="PR">
            <InvoiceDate>20100607</InvoiceDate>
            <InvoiceType>Invoice</InvoiceType>
            <InvoiceID>60252726</InvoiceID>
        </InvoiceNoticeHeader>
    </InvoiceNotice>
</OutboundReports>

Here’s the code:

            'Load the document
            Dim xmlDoc As New XmlDocument
            xmlDoc.Load(txtSourceFile.Text)
            'loop through the xml document
            Dim elemList As XmlNodeList = xmlDoc.GetElementsByTagName("InvoiceNoticeHeader")
            Dim i As Integer
            Dim MyCultureInfo As System.Globalization.CultureInfo = New System.Globalization.CultureInfo("en-US")
            For i = 0 To elemList.Count - 1
                Dim strInvoiceDate As String = elemList(i).Attributes("InvoiceDate").InnerXml
                Dim dtInvoiceDate As Date = Date.ParseExact(strInvoiceDate, "yyyyMMdd", MyCultureInfo)
                Dim xelemInvoiceDate As XmlElement = xmlDoc.CreateElement("InvoiceDate")
                xelemInvoiceDate.InnerText = strInvoiceDate
                elemList(i).AppendChild(xelemInvoiceDate)
                Dim strInvoiceType As String = elemList(i).Attributes("InvoiceType").InnerXml
                Dim xelemrInvoiceType As XmlElement = xmlDoc.CreateElement("InvoiceType")
                xelemrInvoiceType.InnerText = strInvoiceType
                elemList(i).AppendChild(xelemrInvoiceType)
                Dim strInvoiceID As String = elemList(i).Attributes("invoiceID").InnerXml
                Dim xelemInvoiceID As XmlElement = xmlDoc.CreateElement("InvoiceID")
                xelemInvoiceID.InnerText = strInvoiceID
                elemList(i).AppendChild(xelemInvoiceID)
            Next i
            xmlDoc.Save(Me.txtDestinationFile.Text)

The task here is to use the SYSTEM.XML DOM and update a single node in a document. My document looks like this:

<eConnect xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <POPReceivingsType>
    <taUpdateCreateVendorRcd>
    </taUpdateCreateVendorRcd>
    <taCreateVendorAddress>
    </taCreateVendorAddress>
    <taPopRcptLineInsert_Items>
      <taPopRcptLineInsert>
        <PONUMBER>PO08/00012</PONUMBER>
        <LOCNCODE>VA-PIEDMONTB</LOCNCODE>
      </taPopRcptLineInsert>
      <taPopRcptLineInsert>
        <PONUMBER>PO08/00012</PONUMBER>
        <LOCNCODE>VA-PIEDMONTA</LOCNCODE>
      </taPopRcptLineInsert>
    </taPopRcptLineInsert_Items>
    <taPopRcptHdrInsert>
      <POPRCTNM>RC08/00028</POPRCTNM>
      <POPTYPE>1</POPTYPE>
      <BACHNUMB>MYBATCH</BACHNUMB>
    </taPopRcptHdrInsert>
  </POPReceivingsType>
</eConnect>

Here is a sample of code that will do the deed.

Imports System.Xml

        Dim xmlDoc As New XmlDocument
        xmlDoc.Load(Application.StartupPath & "\xmlfile1.xml")
        Dim xnBatch As XmlNode = xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("eConnect/POPReceivingsType/taPopRcptHdrInsert/BACHNUMB")
        xnBatch.InnerXml = "NewBatch"
        MsgBox(xmlDoc.InnerXml)