.net – What XML related technologies I should know before learning LINQ to XML

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I’d like to start learning Linq to Xml, but before I do that, are there any technologies I should know prior to learning Linq to Xml?

Thus, besides the basics of XML and XML schema, which of the following technologies I must, which I would be advisable to and which I don’t need to learn before trying to learn Linq to XML:

• Net Schema Object Model

• XPath

• Working with XPath in .Net (System.Xml.XPath namespace)

• XSLT

• XML serialization

• XML Readers and Writers ( XmlTextReader,XmlTextWriter etc )

• Anything else?

thanx

Best Answer

My suggestion:

XPath
XSLT
XML Schemas

in this order. These are not required to learn LINQ to XML, but can provide a good background on what to do with XML documents.

Related Solutions

C# – LINQ to read XML

Try this.

using System.Xml.Linq;

void Main()
{
    StringBuilder result = new StringBuilder();

    //Load xml
    XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Load("data.xml");

    //Run query
    var lv1s = from lv1 in xdoc.Descendants("level1")
               select new { 
                   Header = lv1.Attribute("name").Value,
                   Children = lv1.Descendants("level2")
               };

    //Loop through results
    foreach (var lv1 in lv1s){
            result.AppendLine(lv1.Header);
            foreach(var lv2 in lv1.Children)
                 result.AppendLine("     " + lv2.Attribute("name").Value);
    }

    Console.WriteLine(result);
}

Xml – What characters do I need to escape in XML documents

If you use an appropriate class or library, they will do the escaping for you. Many XML issues are caused by string concatenation.

XML escape characters

There are only five:

"   &quot;
'   &apos;
<   &lt;
>   &gt;
&   &amp;

Escaping characters depends on where the special character is used.

The examples can be validated at the W3C Markup Validation Service.

Text

The safe way is to escape all five characters in text. However, the three characters ", ' and > needn't be escaped in text:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<valid>"'></valid>

Attributes

The safe way is to escape all five characters in attributes. However, the > character needn't be escaped in attributes:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<valid attribute=">"/>

The ' character needn't be escaped in attributes if the quotes are ":

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<valid attribute="'"/>

Likewise, the " needn't be escaped in attributes if the quotes are ':

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<valid attribute='"'/>

Comments

All five special characters must not be escaped in comments:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<valid>
<!-- "'<>& -->
</valid>

CDATA

All five special characters must not be escaped in CDATA sections:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<valid>
<![CDATA["'<>&]]>
</valid>

Processing instructions

All five special characters must not be escaped in XML processing instructions:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?process <"'&> ?>
<valid/>

XML vs. HTML

HTML has its own set of escape codes which cover a lot more characters.