XML Elements and Attributes - How to retrive?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<chimaera>
<servers>
<host ip="172.16.1.30">Chimaera</host>
<host ip="172.16.1.31">Isis</host>
<host ip="172.16.1.32">MySQL</host>
<host ip="172.16.1.33">Ares</host>
<host ip="172.16.1.34">Osiris</host>
<host ip="172.16.1.35">Mars</host>
<host ip="192.16.3.5">James Server</host>
</servers>
<themes value="true" />
<locationupdate path="C:\1.xml" />
</chimaera>


this is my xml file...

how do i loop through it ONCE and retrive the element names and attributes?

such as...

dim mynode as xmlnode
dim myel as xmlelement

for each mynode in xmldoc.documentelement
select case mynode.childnode.name
case "host"
myel.value
case "themes"
myel.value
case "locationupdate"
myel.value
next

rather than...

For Each xmlNode In xmlDoc.SelectNodes("//chimaera/servers/host")
lvwItem.SubItems.Add(xmlNode.Attributes.ItemOf("ip").Value)
Next

and doing three of these loops to get the attributes of ip, value, and path.... any code would be appreciative thank you.

Huh? Where are the three loops? Your trouble is that you are storing info in a heirarchy xml structure so a standard loop isn't going to get the children. If you want to straight loop then why store it like that? Otherwise why not just get the three unrelated parts seperately, you shouldn't have to loop for the value and path if there is just one. Maybe explain more of what you are trying to do.

After re-reading your post a couple times I think understand what you are after, although my previous questions still apply. The once loop bit can be done like this:

VB Code:

Dim xdoc As New XmlDocument
        xdoc.Load("..\data.xml")
        For Each nod As XmlNode In xdoc.SelectNodes("//*")
            Select Case nod.Name
                Case "host"
                    MsgBox(nod.Attributes("ip").Value, , "host")
                Case "themes"
                    MsgBox(nod.Attributes("value").Value, , "themes")
                Case "locationupdate"
                    MsgBox(nod.Attributes("path").Value, , "locationupdate")
            End Select
        Next

Although then you have to loop through every node even though you don't use all of them. Now in your sample there isn't much you don't use so its no biggie but if the file was larger then this would be wasteful.

I would suggest you do it like the following:

VB Code:

Dim xdoc As New XmlDocument
        xdoc.Load("..\data.xml")
        For Each nod As XmlNode In xdoc.SelectNodes("//servers/host")
            MsgBox(nod.Attributes("ip").Value, , "host")
        Next
        MsgBox(xdoc.SelectSingleNode("//themes/@value").Value, , "themes")
        MsgBox(xdoc.SelectSingleNode("//locationupdate/@path").Value, , "locationupdate")

Also if you only need the ip and not the value of the host node then you can use this in the loop instead:

VB Code:

For Each nod As XmlNode In xdoc.SelectNodes("//servers/host/@ip")
            MsgBox(nod.Value, , "host")
        Next

thanks edneesis, awesome!