What is the best way for search a string value in an XML file

Hi all, I have the following problem :

I have a list of XML files that contain data for an application. I need to loop through each of those files to find a search string. If found I need to store each matching node, together with its parents, into a treeview. Any ideas how this can be achieved?

can you show the format of yor xml?

See this article: XML TreeView
Shows a way to work with Xml files using the XmlDocument class.

Actually I can load an XML file into a treeview, the tricky part actually if finding the search string into the files and then load these find matched into a treeview. Please find attached an example of my xml file.

There's a language for searching through XML files. I think it's called XQL. It's supported in .NET. I recommend you to google for it. I'm sure you'll find something useful.

Sorry, I took a look at your file and it is rather easy filestructure so maybe it is easier just doing it with an XmlDocument yes.

I'll post you some code:

Code:

---



            List<XmlNode> list = new List<XmlNode>();
            XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
            doc.Load(fullFileName);
            searchKeyWord = "blablabla.txt";
            MakeList(list, (XmlElement)(doc.ChildNodes[0]), searchKeyWord);



      public void MakeList(List<XmlNode> list, XmlElement element, string searchKeyWord)
        {
            foreach (XmlElement node in element.ChildNodes)
            {
                    if (node.Name.ToLower() == "node" && node.Attributes["text"].Value ==searchKeyWord)
                    {
                              list.Add(node);
                    }
                    if (node.ChildNodes.Count>0){
                              MakeList(list, node, searchKeyWord)
                    }
            }
            return list;
        }

---

this should do the trick. Here I just looked if the nodename was "node" and the checked if the attribute was equal to a certain keyword. Of course you could use something else like Contains(searchKeyWord) or StartsWith(searchKeyWord), ...

It is a recursive method. Which means that it calls itself to search into childnodes of a childnodes of a childnodes of a childnodes of a childnodes of a node :)

There are 3 things to note.

Note 1
I wrote this code for .NET 2005 with the following using reference.
using System.Collections.Generic;

You will need to place this on top of your project file.

This is necessary for the List<XmlNode> If you do not know what it is and it gives errors, then you just replace every List<XMLNode> by a usual ArrayList. It will also work.

Note 2
This rule:
doc.ChildNodes[0]
I used it assuming you have a kind of root element in you XMLfile which contains all data. If it doesn't work try just doc.ChildNodes instead.

Note 3
I just wrote it here without testing it or checking the syntax. So there could be stupid mistakes in it. Don't hesitate to ask

Let me know if it worked ;)

Greetings
BramGo

It's XPath you want.

Load the XML into an XMLDocument, then use the .SelectNodes() method, passing it an xquery:

/firstnode/secondnode[contains(somenode/text(),"thetextyouwant")]