Convert XML Files Data To List Of Object

Introduction

In this article, we will create an application that will get all data from XML files from a specific directory and convert it to C# object.

Step 1

To get all XML files from a specific location we can use the Directory library provided by 'System.IO'. The other namespaces are 'System.Xml.Serialization' to serialize the XML.

I have a XML file like the below sample.xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<entry id="99" binderId="vg" definitionId="qwe" definitionName="asd" title="this is Title" exportVersion="3" docNumber="1" docLevel="1" href="google.com">
  <attribute name="_zone" type="text">abc</attribute>
  <signature>
    <creation date="2013-09-24T07:20:47">
      <principal id="1" name="admin" title="admin" emailAddress="[email protected]">admin</principal>
    </creation>
    <modification date="2013-09-24T07:24:29">
      <principal id="1" name="admin" title="admin" emailAddress="[email protected]">admin</principal>
    </modification>
  </signature>
  <attribute name="title" type="title">This is Title</attribute>
  <attribute name="description" type="description" format="1" zoneUUID="ff">This is desc.</attribute>
  <attribute name="attachFile" type="attachFiles">
    <file href="ar1.jpg" numVersions="1">ar1.jpg</file>
    <file href="ar2.jpg" numVersions="1">ar2.jpg</file>
    <file href="ar3.jpg" numVersions="1">ar3.jpg</file>
    <file href="ar4.jpg" numVersions="1">ar4.jpg</file>
    <file href="ar5.jpg" numVersions="1">ar5.jpg</file>
  </attribute>
  <workflows/>
  <settings>
    <accessControls/>
  </settings>
</entry>

Step: 2 Create a Project

Now, we start to create a console application to get all data from XML to c# objects.

After opening Visual Studio, next, we need to create an ASP.NET MVC project. For doing that, just click File - New - Project.

Create a class file to map above all tags you can also use the sites which provide the XML to c# property class. In this case, I use https://xmltocsharp.azurewebsites.net. 

It will show like below,

using System;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.Collections.Generic;
namespace Xml2CSharp
{
	[XmlRoot(ElementName="attribute")]
	public class Attribute {
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="name")]
		public string Name { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="type")]
		public string Type { get; set; }
		[XmlText]
		public string Text { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="format")]
		public string Format { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="zoneUUID")]
		public string ZoneUUID { get; set; }
		[XmlElement(ElementName="file")]
		public List<File> File { get; set; }
	}

	[XmlRoot(ElementName="principal")]
	public class Principal {
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="id")]
		public string Id { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="name")]
		public string Name { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="title")]
		public string Title { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="emailAddress")]
		public string EmailAddress { get; set; }
		[XmlText]
		public string Text { get; set; }
	}

	[XmlRoot(ElementName="creation")]
	public class Creation {
		[XmlElement(ElementName="principal")]
		public Principal Principal { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="date")]
		public string Date { get; set; }
	}

	[XmlRoot(ElementName="modification")]
	public class Modification {
		[XmlElement(ElementName="principal")]
		public Principal Principal { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="date")]
		public string Date { get; set; }
	}

	[XmlRoot(ElementName="signature")]
	public class Signature {
		[XmlElement(ElementName="creation")]
		public Creation Creation { get; set; }
		[XmlElement(ElementName="modification")]
		public Modification Modification { get; set; }
	}

	[XmlRoot(ElementName="file")]
	public class File {
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="href")]
		public string Href { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="numVersions")]
		public string NumVersions { get; set; }
		[XmlText]
		public string Text { get; set; }
	}

	[XmlRoot(ElementName="settings")]
	public class Settings {
		[XmlElement(ElementName="accessControls")]
		public string AccessControls { get; set; }
	}

	[XmlRoot(ElementName="entry")]
	public class Entry {
		[XmlElement(ElementName="attribute")]
		public List<Attribute> Attribute { get; set; }
		[XmlElement(ElementName="signature")]
		public Signature Signature { get; set; }
		[XmlElement(ElementName="workflows")]
		public string Workflows { get; set; }
		[XmlElement(ElementName="settings")]
		public Settings Settings { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="id")]
		public string Id { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="binderId")]
		public string BinderId { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="definitionId")]
		public string DefinitionId { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="definitionName")]
		public string DefinitionName { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="title")]
		public string Title { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="exportVersion")]
		public string ExportVersion { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="docNumber")]
		public string DocNumber { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="docLevel")]
		public string DocLevel { get; set; }
		[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="href")]
		public string Href { get; set; }
	}

}