Convert XmlText to HtmlText

I have been using Xml streams for quite some time. When I use them in an ASP.Net page, using SOAP or Ajax calls, I sometimes want to see what I send and what I recieve from the server. Showing them on the page was always a bit of tweak. This ample code demonstrates a very simple tweek. It provides a label that can show the xml Text (as its content or Text property) on the page, by rendering the simpel characters.

When the control is compiled I can use it as one of the two ways:

<panahyAjax:XmlLabel runat="server" ID="xmlLabel">
<this>
  <is just="one">sample</is>
</this>
</panahyAjax:XmlLabel>
Or

XmlLabel label = new XmlLabel();
var file = File.OpenText("Sample.xml");
label.Text = file.ReadToEnd();

And the code is as folllows:

public class XmlLabel : Label
{
 public static string ConvertXmlTextToHtmlText(string inputText)
 {
  // Replace all start and end tags.
  string startPattern = @"<([^>]+)>";
  var regEx = new Regex(startPattern);
  string outputText = regEx.Replace(inputText, "&lt;<b>$1&gt;</b>");
  outputText = outputText.Replace(" ", "&nbsp;");
  outputText = outputText.Replace("\r\n", "<br />");
  return outputText;
 }
 protected override void RenderContents(HtmlTextWriter output)
 {
  string xmlText = XmlLabel.ConvertXmlTextToHtmlText(Text);
  output.Write(xmlText);
 }
}

Get XML String from XElement

You can use the WriteTo method of the XElement object to an XmlWriter and this can be created in ten different ways like by giving a filename or passing a stream as output or simply giving the StringBuilder to write to:

/// <summary>
/// Generates XML string from an XElement
/// summary>
/// <param name="xml">XElement source</param>
public string GetXmlString(XElement xml)
{
    // could also be any other stream
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
   
    // Initialize a new writer settings
    XmlWriterSettings xws = new XmlWriterSettings();
    xws.OmitXmlDeclaration = true;
    xws.Indent = true;

    using (XmlWriter xw = XmlWriter.Create(sb, xws))
    {               
        // the actual writing takes place
        xml.WriteTo(xw);
    }

    return sb.ToString();

}
    

It is important to know that the XElement already supports ToString which generates the same results as this code, but when you want to get something else, this could be a good start.


See further information in MSDN.

Another peace of code that I don't want to rewrite it again (and again)

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

/// <summary>
/// This class uses XmlSerializer to do both sides of conversion to xml string
/// </summary>
/// <typeparam name="T">any Serializable class</typeparam>
public class Serializer<T>
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Convert an instance to XML string
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="item"></param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public string Serialize(T item)
    {

        MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
        XmlTextWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.Unicode);

        XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
        serializer.Serialize(writer, item);

        writer.Flush();
        ms.Position = 0;

        StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(ms);
        return reader.ReadToEnd();

    }
    /// <summary>
    /// another version, could be better
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="item"></param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    private string GetSerialize2(T item)
    {
        StringWriter wr = new StringWriter(new StringBuilder());

        XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
        serializer.Serialize(wr, item);

        wr.Close();
        return wr.GetStringBuilder().ToString();
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Convert the XML string to an instance of an object
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="xml"></param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public T Deserialize(string xml)
    {
        XmlTextReader stream = new XmlTextReader(new StringReader(xml));
        XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
        return (T)serializer.Deserialize(stream);
    }
}

LINQ over XML

This example is also from th AppDev:

var doc = CreateDocument(); // returns an XDocument
var items = from item in doc.Descendants("Item")
            where (string)item.Parent.Attribute("Name") == "Breads"
            select item;

now transforming the xml to a new format:

XElement transformed = new XElement("items",
            from item in items
            select new XElement("item",
                   new XAttribute("ItemName", (string)item.Element("Name")),
                   new XAttribute("Price", (string)item.Element("Price))));

How to Transform A DataSet using Xml and Xslt in .Net 2.0

// Creating DOM Document
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

// Get hold of the XML string from the dataset
doc.LoadXml(ds.GetXml());

//Load XSL and Tranform
XslCompiledTransform myXslTrans = new XslCompiledTransform();
string path = Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();
myXslTrans.Load(path + @"\PrintView.xslt");

// Using a StringWriter for Streaming part
StringWriter stringWriter = new StringWriter();

// The actual transformation
myXslTrans.Transform(doc.DocumentElement, null, stringWriter);
stringWriter.Flush();

// Consuming the transformed results
webBrowser1.Document.Write(stringWriter.ToString());

//doc.Save("Example.xml");