This may sound stupid, but I wanted to store some text parsing I was doing for some VDP projects in LINQ to XML XDocuments.

So, I created the following:

XDocument recs = new XDocument();
XElement records1 = new XElement("Records");
XElement record1 = new XElement("Record");
record1.Add(new XElement("id", "1"),
new XElement("Name","Test"),
new XElement("Address","123 Anywhere")
);
records1.Add(record1);
recs.Add(records1);

which should create an xml document looking like this:

<Records>
<Record>
<id>1</id>
<Name>Test</Name>
<Address>123 Anywhere</Address>
</Record>
</Records>


So, I want to write this out to a CSV file. But I want to assume that my XML Nodes might change (but at least stay consistent throughout the XML Document) by datasource and I want to systematically write out the names of the nodes and then loop through and write out the values.

So the hard part:

var list2 = from el2 in recs.Elements("Record")
select el2;
//Build Header Line
StringBuilder csvlist = new StringBuilder();
var headers = (list2.First().Nodes().ToList());
int cc = 1;
foreach (var node in headers)
{
csvlist.Append((node as XElement).Name);
if (cc != headers.Count)
{
csvlist.Append(",");
}
cc++;
}
csvlist.AppendLine();
foreach (var t in list2)
{
for (int i = 0; i < t.Nodes().Count(); i++)
{
csvlist.Append((t.Nodes().ToList()[i] as XElement).Value);
if (i != (t.Nodes().Count() - 1))
{
csvlist.Append(",");
}
}
csvlist.AppendLine();
}

So at the end of all this, csvlist contains the headers and data as comma separated.

There are lots we could add or fix in this, but it allows us great flexibility in outputting xml data as delimited text.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional coder, I do this as a passion. The above code has no warranty or ability to actually do what I say it does. Use at your own risk, fix, add or change if you are willing.

Ok,

My rant for the day is about trying to use Microsoft C# and LINQ and XML and WPF. I spend more time trying to figure out simple stuff, because nothing exists as solid examples of how to do what I need to do.
I spend so much of my time trying to find decent examples of how to do stuff on the net, and find nearly nothing.
Why?
I know people are doing this stuff, is it because its a closed source system and sharing the code just isn't "cool" by the users?
I am sick of it, and I am going to try to lead by example and post my minor victories in trying to do things using this great platform.

Why?
Well, couple of reasons...
1. Code should be free. Not as in not get paid for it, but how to do something should be shared, knowledge isn't worth anything unless you share it.
2. Selfish reasons, I can find different things I find much easier and watch my progression through the products
3. Cause I haven't really found a good reason to keep posting regularly on my blog, and this just might be a good excuse.

So, there you have it, my rant for the day and my promise to share my code examples of what I am trying to do.