Converting XML to a dynamic C# object

Question

I've used the following C# code to convert a string of JSON data to a dynamic object using the JSON.Net framework:

// Creates a dynamic .Net object representing the JSON data
var ProductDB = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<dynamic>(JsonData);

Once converted, I can access the elements directly using code like this:

// Variables to be used
string ProductID;
string ProductType;
int ProductQty;

// Loop through each of the products
foreach (dynamic product in ProductDB.products)
{
    ProductID = product.id;
    ProductType = product.type;
    ProductQty = product.qty;
}

Is there anything similar to this for working with XML data? I could just use JSON.net to convert my XML to JSON and then re-use the code above, but that feels like cheating.

Thanks.

Azores

I have found some good solutions available as per your requirement: 1. Parse XML to dynamic object in C# 2. Creating a dynamic object from XML using ExpandoObject 3. Fluent XML Parsing Using C#'s Dynamic Type Part 1 4. [Dynamic XML Reader with C# and .Net 4.0](blogs.msdn.com/b/mcsuksoldev/archive/2010/02/04/dynamic – Stockpile

Answer 1

XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(xmlData); //or XDocument.Load(path)
string jsonText = JsonConvert.SerializeXNode(doc);
dynamic dyn = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<ExpandoObject>(jsonText);

I think "cheating" is the answer - the xml solutions are very long :)

Analeptic

That's great! How would you access an attribute though? For example, after parsing a .nuspec file I should be able to navigate to the following nuspec.package.dependencies.dependency.@version but @version is not recognised. – Tegucigalpa

Anton, attributes are prefixed with an '@'. Also see newtonsoft.com/json/help/html/ConvertingJSONandXML.htm. I normally cast the ExpandoObject to a Dictionary. The attribute is accessible through that dictionary with the '@<attributename>' key. – Wholesome

Answer 2

An alternative for future visitors, the one from ITDevSpace doesn't include attributes on elements with children.

public class XmlWrapper
{
    public static dynamic Convert(XElement parent)
    {
        dynamic output = new ExpandoObject();

        output.Name = parent.Name.LocalName;
        output.Value = parent.Value;

        output.HasAttributes = parent.HasAttributes;
        if (parent.HasAttributes)
        {
            output.Attributes = new List<KeyValuePair<string, string>>();
            foreach (XAttribute attr in parent.Attributes())
            {
                KeyValuePair<string, string> temp = new KeyValuePair<string, string>(attr.Name.LocalName, attr.Value);
                output.Attributes.Add(temp);
            }
        }

        output.HasElements = parent.HasElements;
        if (parent.HasElements)
        {
            output.Elements = new List<dynamic>();
            foreach (XElement element in parent.Elements())
            {
                dynamic temp = Convert(element);
                output.Elements.Add(temp);
            }
        }

        return output;
    }
}

Suzansuzann

and how do I use this? – Mornay

Answer 3

Cinchoo ETL - an open source library available to parse xml into dynamic object

using (var p = ChoXmlReader.LoadText(xml).WithXPath("/"))
{
    foreach (dynamic rec in p)
        Console.WriteLine(rec.Dump());
}

Checkout CodeProject article for some additional help.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of this library.

Screwball

Answer 4

From @FSX's answer I have successfully used the solution from "Parse XML to dynamic object in C#":

public class XmlToDynamic
{
    public static void Parse(dynamic parent, XElement node)
    {
        if (node.HasElements)
        {
            if (node.Elements(node.Elements().First().Name.LocalName).Count() > 1)
            {
                //list
                var item = new ExpandoObject();
                var list = new List<dynamic>();
                foreach (var element in node.Elements())
                {                        
                    Parse(list, element);                        
                }

                AddProperty(item, node.Elements().First().Name.LocalName, list);
                AddProperty(parent, node.Name.ToString(), item);
            }
            else
            {
                var item = new ExpandoObject();

                foreach (var attribute in node.Attributes())
                {
                    AddProperty(item, attribute.Name.ToString(), attribute.Value.Trim());
                }

                //element
                foreach (var element in node.Elements())
                {
                    Parse(item, element);
                }

                AddProperty(parent, node.Name.ToString(), item);
            }
        }
        else
        {
            AddProperty(parent, node.Name.ToString(), node.Value.Trim());
        }
    }

    private static void AddProperty(dynamic parent, string name, object value)
    {
        if (parent is List<dynamic>)
        {
            (parent as List<dynamic>).Add(value);
        }
        else
        {
            (parent as IDictionary<String, object>)[name] = value;
        }
    }
}

Metalline

I have used this; it works very well providing dynamic names and values inside a dynamic object. – Strike