Adding New Element with Attributes in XML document using LINQ

Today's post will show a way to add new element to the existing XML Document with list of attributes name as contained in other elements with the help of LINQ in C#. 

Herein the sample customers.xml file used for the current example

Customers.xml

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

<Customers>

  <customer name="Steve John" Id="CUST0001" location="New York" 
  country="United States" DOB="12/23/1960" Phone="+12126661111"/>

  <customer name="Sagar Mehta" Id="CUST0106" location="Bangalore" 
   country="India" DOB="07/23/1978" Phone="+918088881001" />

  <customer name="Rahul Raj" Id="CUST0190" location="Delhi" 
   country="India" DOB="01/31/1980" Phone="+911166661111" />

  <customer name="John Roderix" Id="CUST0301" location="Sydney" 
   country="Australia" DOB="02/13/1956" Phone="+61(0)280623999"/>

</Customers>

//Loading the customers xml into the XDocument object

XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Load(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory+ "/Customers.xml");

There could be different ways to add the same attributes details as exists in other elements.

Scenario 1: Adding the New element with Attributes details using Attributes name in the XElement creation.

Herein a new element is created with the existing set of attributes name.

XElement oXElementNew = 

       new XElement("Customer", 

             new XAttribute("name", "Martin King"),

             new XAttribute("city", "New York"),

             new XAttribute("country", "USA"),

             new XAttribute("emailid", "martinking@martin.com"));

Now newly created element "oXElementNew" will be added to the existing xDoc object of XML document.

xDoc.Root.Add( oXElementNew );

Now all the Element details from the XML document will be retrieved to see whether the newly added Element is added to the xDoc object.

//retreiving all the elements from the xDoc object

IEnumerable<XElement> rows = 

                         from row in xDoc.Descendants("Customer")

                         select row;

//looping through all the elements 

foreach (XElement xe in rows)

{

  //retreiving all the attributes from the current xElement 

  IEnumerable<XAttribute> attList = 

                       from att in            

                       xe.DescendantsAndSelf().Attributes()

                       select att;

 //looping through the attributes collection

 foreach (XAttribute xAtt in attList)

 {

    //displaying the individual attributes details for the 

    //selected element

    Console.WriteLine(xAtt);

 }

 //to display a separator between two customer records

 Console.WriteLine("---Customer details separator---");

}

The newly created element details can be seen in the output window.

Scenario 2: First getting the count of Attributes in a element and then creating the New element with Attributes details using Attributes array index position.

//getting the count of Attributes from an Element of XML Document

int attributesCount = xDoc.Descendants("Customer").ElementAt(0).Attributes().Count();

//Definiting an array varible of type XAttribute and defining the array size using the //attributesCount

XAttribute[] xAttribute = new XAttribute[attributesCount];

//assigning the each attributes index a value

xAttribute[0] = new XAttribute("name","Rahul Pradhan");

xAttribute[1] = new XAttribute("city", "Hyderabad");

xAttribute[2] = new XAttribute("country", "India");

xAttribute[3] = new XAttribute("emailid", "rahul.p@gmail.com");

//creating the new xElement by passing the attribute details

XElement oXElementNew = new XElement("Customer", xAttribute);

//adding the newly created element to the Xml root node

xDoc.Root.Add(oXElementNew);

//now we will retrieve all the elements from the xDoc object 

IEnumerable<XElement> rows = 

                         from row in xDoc.Descendants("Customer")

                         select row;

//looping through all the elements 

foreach (XElement xe in rows)

{

  //retreiving all the attributes from the current xElement 

  IEnumerable<XAttribute> attList = 

                       from att in            

                       xe.DescendantsAndSelf().Attributes()

                       select att;

 //looping through the attributes collection

 foreach (XAttribute xAtt in attList)

 {

    //displaying the individual attributes details for the 

    //selected element

    Console.WriteLine(xAtt);

 }

 //to display a separator between two customer records

 Console.WriteLine("---Customer details separator---");

}

The newly created element details can be seen in the output window.

I have used Console.Write for writing the output to demonstrate the output retrieved. You can use any way the data is required to be displayed or stored in a collection.

Happy Coding.........