How to merge XML node values into one node separated with a slash every 2 values

Question

I have the following XML file:

    <root>
        <table>
            <items>Item 1</items>
        </table>
        <table>
            <items>Item 2</items>
        </table>
        <table>
            <items>Item 3</items>
        </table>
        <table>
            <items>Item 4</items>
        </table>
        <table>
            <items>Item 5</items>
        </table>
        <table>
            <items>Item 6</items>
        </table>
        <table>
            <items>Item 7</items>
        </table>
        <table>
            <items>Item 8</items>
        </table>
    </root>

I want to merge all items values into one node so I can use that nodes value in some piece of code. Every 2 values it should be separated with a "/".

I managed to write some code and my result right now is this:

<root>
    <table>
        <items>Item 1, Item 2, Item 3, Item 4, Item 5, Item 6, Item 7, Item 8</items>
    </table>
</root>

However the end result should look like this:

<root>
    <table>
        <items>Item 1, Item 2 / Item 3, Item 4 / Item 5, Item 6 / Item 7, Item 8</items>
    </table>
</root>

EDIT: This is the code I used for getting what I have right now:

var input = "XML";

    XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(input);

    XElement root = doc.Root;
    XElement parentTable = root.Element("parentTable");
    parentTable.Add(new XElement("components"));
    XElement components = parentTable.Element("components");
    ArrayList componentArray = new ArrayList();

    foreach (var d in doc.Descendants("table"))

    {
        componentArray.Add(d.Value + ", ");
    }

    components.Add(componentArray);

    doc.Save("XML");

Could you please clarify what APIs you like to use? `ArrayList` is soooo old that it's unclear what you are limited to... I.e. something like https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13731796/create-batches-in-linq probably would give you data in shape that can be actually useful later... — Alexei Levenkov, Oct 12 '19 at 22:58
You show xml with the names `root`, `table`, `items`, but in C# code uses the names `parentTable`, `components`. — Alexander Petrov, Oct 12 '19 at 23:09

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 13 '19 at 00:01

Simple with xml linq

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Linq;
using System.IO;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        const string FILENAME = @"c:\temp\test.xml";
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string input = File.ReadAllText(FILENAME);
            XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(input);

            string[] data = doc.Descendants("items").Select(x => (string)x).ToArray();

            string splitData = string.Join(" / ", data.Select((x, i) => new { data = x, index = i }).GroupBy(x => x.index / 2).Select(x => string.Join(" , ", x.Select(y => y.data))));

            XElement newDoc = new XElement("root", new XElement("table", new XElement("items", splitData)));
        }
    }
}

zx485 · Answer 2 · 2019-10-12T23:35:31.327

One way to achieve your goal is using an XSLT-1.0 stylesheet, the preferred method to process XML data.

So, you can execute this XSLT-1.0 stylesheet (here named trans.xslt) from C#:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="xml" encoding="UTF-8" omit-xml-declaration="yes" />
<xsl:strip-space elements="*" />

    <xsl:template match="/root">
        <xsl:copy>
            <table>
                <items><xsl:apply-templates select="table"/></items>
            </table>
        </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>

    <xsl:template match="table[position() mod 2 != 0]">
        <xsl:value-of select="items" />
    </xsl:template>    

    <xsl:template match="table[position() mod 2 = 0]">
        <xsl:value-of select="concat(', ', items)" />
        <xsl:if test="position() != last()"><xsl:text> / </xsl:text></xsl:if>
    </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

with this C# code described in this SO answer:

var myXslTrans = new XslCompiledTransform(); 
myXslTrans.Load("trans.xslt"); 
myXslTrans.Transform("input.xml", "output.xml");

Its output(output.xml) is:

<root>
    <table>
        <items>Item 1, Item 2 / Item 3, Item 4 / Item 5, Item 6 / Item 7, Item 8</items>
    </table>
</root>

Alexander Petrov · Answer 3 · 2019-10-12T23:12:51.133

Just use the boolean variable as a flag of what value to insert on each iteration.

var doc = XDocument.Load("test.xml");

var sb = new StringBuilder();
bool flag = true;
var nodes = doc.Root.Elements("table").Elements("items").ToList();

for (int i = 0; i < nodes.Count; i++)
{
    sb.Append(nodes[i].Value);

    if (i == nodes.Count - 1)
        break;

    sb.Append(flag ? ", " : " / ");

    flag = !flag;
}

var newDoc = new XDocument(
    new XElement("root",
        new XElement("table",
            new XElement("items", sb.ToString()))));

newDoc.Save(Console.Out);

You can do it without an extra variable:

for (int i = 0; i < nodes.Count; i++)
{
    sb.Append(nodes[i].Value);

    if (i == nodes.Count - 1)
        break;

    sb.Append(i % 2 == 0 ? ", " : " / ");
}

How to merge XML node values into one node separated with a slash every 2 values

3 Answers3