By Kevin Matthew Goss
Source Code
Xml has become a very ubiquitous and is an integral part of
.Net and the System.Data namespace. The problem lies in that not many
people know how to take advantage of some of the features. When we are
using a database, we naturally use the Systen.Data namespace, but with Xml
documents as data there are hundreds of solutions for displaying Xml data out
there for .Net.
I myself prefer to use the DataSet object and the DataGrid
control just as I would if the data was coming from SQL Server.
The common misconception, even to those who know that you can
do this, is that you need a schema to accomplish it. There is a very
simple way to bind raw Xml data to a datagrid without a schema. The
Xml data must be simple though, mapping to rows easily.
For the example I used the following Xml data which is the result of a ForXml
query against the pubs database.
<?xml
version='1.0'?>
<root>
<Titles>
<Title>The Busy Executive's Database
Guide</Title>
<Type>business </Type>
<Price>19.9900</Price>
</Titles>
<Titles>
<Title>Cooking with Computers: Surreptitious
Balance Sheets</Title>
<Type>business </Type>
<Price>11.9500</Price>
</Titles>
</root>
Next I created a web form with a DataGrid on it. Using
the property builder for the DataGrid, I set up the styles for the header and
the items. After this I added the following code to the Page_Load event:
DataSet ds = new
DataSet();
ds.ReadXml(Server.MapPath("titles.xml"),XmlReadMode.InferSchema);
> this.DataGrid1.DataSource = ds;
this.DataGrid1.DataBind();
As you can see, it only takes four lines of code to bind the
Xml data to the DataGrid. First you create a new DataSet object.
Next you use the ReadXml method of the DataSet object. If you have a
schema, the second argument is not needed, but you must also call the
ReadXmlSchema like this (It will validate as well and throw an error if the
data does not match the schema and you must load the schema first):
DataSet ds = new
ds.ReadXmlSchema("titles.xsd");
Without a schema, you must specify the second argument as above so that the
schema (although very base and unuseful) is inferred from the structure of the
Xml data. The result of the code looks like this:
If you want to get the Xml data from a database ForXml query or command, you can
use the following implementation:
//bind 2nd to an XML
reader
SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=
pubs;UserId=sa;Password=SQLPassword;");
conn.Open();
SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("Select top 2 * from Titles for xml
auto",conn);
XmlReader xr = cmd.ExecuteXmlReader();
DataSet ds2 = new DataSet();
ds2.ReadXml(xr,XmlReadMode.InferSchema);
this.DataGrid2.DataSource = ds;
this.DataGrid2.DataBind();
With the Xml data in a datagrid you can sort, page and
all sorts of other neat stuff. And as you can see, it is very easy to
use. Also, if the data source ever changes, like from Xml to a stored
procedure, then changing the code is very easy. Well that is it!!! Happy
Coding!!!
