Jun 3

Written by: Steve Gray
6/3/2010 6:46 AM 

Recently I had a project where I needed to have a small configuration file/table that a user could maintain, possibly add records to if needed. The overhead to put that in SQL was a little too much – I’d need to write forms for the maintenance, handle security… it would take a bit to do all that.

Instead, it seemed easier to write an XML file to handle the task and to allow the user FTP access to the web site. So, given an XML file, how do I get access to all the fields in one ‘record’? LinqToXML to the rescue.

First, create a class to represent the record

Public Class eCard
    Public cardID As Int16
    Public image As String
    Public imageThumb As String
    Public subject As String
    Public label As String
End Class

Then, here is code to read the XML file and populate the class. This is a ASP DataList ItemCommand method, the DataList as the ‘cardID’ in the CommandArgument.

Imports System.Data
Imports System.Xml.Linq
Imports System.Linq
Imports System.Xml

    Protected Sub lstCards_ItemCommand(ByVal source As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataListCommandEventArgs) Handles lstCards.ItemCommand
        Dim doc = XDocument.Load(Server.MapPath("/eCards/eCard.xml"))
        Dim cardID As Int16 = e.CommandArgument
        Dim query = _
            From c In doc.<cards>.<card> _
            Where c.<cardID>.Value = cardID _
            Select c
        Dim eCard As New eCard
        For Each g In query
            eCard.cardID = cardID
            eCard.image = g.<image>(0).Value
            eCard.imageThumb = g.<imageThumb>(0).Value
            eCard.subject = g.<subject>(0).Value
            eCard.label = g.<label>(0).Value
        Next
        Session("eCard") = eCard
        Response.Redirect("eCards2.aspx")
    End Sub