XmlDocument Vs XDocument and their usage

When there was XmlDocument why we need XDocument, is there any better feature available with XDocument, answer is yes, XDocument has a number of benefits, easy to create, easy to update, easy to search, ability to use LINQ to XML, cleaner object model etc.

In this post we will see some examples and difference of code while using XmlDocument and XDocument; we will discuss some way to convert XmlDocument to XDocument. Let’s first see code difference to create a simple XmlDocument and XDocument and see the easiness of XDocument creation

<root name="rootname">
   <child>Child Node Text</child>
</root>

// By using XmlDocument
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
XmlElement root = doc.CreateElement("root");
root.SetAttribute("name", "rootname");
XmlElement child = doc.CreateElement("child");
child.InnerText = "Child Node Text";
root.AppendChild(child);
doc.AppendChild(root);

// By using XDocument
XDocument doc = new XDocument(new XElement("root",
                 new XAttribute("name", " rootname"),
                 new XElement("child", "Child Node Text")));

In most of our existing applications we used XMLDocument, so how to convert and existing XmlDocument to XDocument, there are many ways, let's see some of them

//By using outerXml
XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Parse(xmldoc.OuterXml);

//By using CreateNavigator().ReadSubtree()
XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Load(xmldoc.CreateNavigator().ReadSubtree());

//By using XmlNodeReader
XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Load(new XmlNodeReader(xmldoc));

//Where xmldoc is the XmlDocument 

This small peace of code shows the clear difference and easy to use of XDocument.

Ali Adravi Having 13+ years of experience in Microsoft Technologies (C#, ASP.Net, MVC and SQL Server). Worked with Metaoption LLC, for more than 9 years and still with the same company. Always ready to learn new technologies and tricks.
  • xml
  • asp.net
  • c#
By Ali Adravi On 16 Mar, 13  Viewed: 3,523

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