How do I replace text in multiple XML files?

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Hello!

I am developing an application to convert text in XML files. I have already created a part of it, where I will enter the folder path and it will load all the xml files in that folder.

Now what I want is that all the xml files have texts and I want something like the following:

Text in XML files

<image>
<caption>This is a caption.</caption>
<credits>This is a test sentence.</credits>
</image>

Required replacement

<credits>
This is a test sentence
</credits>

<image>
<caption>This is a caption.</caption>
</image>

Basically I want to separate the <credits> tag from inside the tag an keep the rest as it is. All the changes will be made in the imported xml files from the folder path. I have displayed the list of file in a ListView.

Please help.

What I have tried:

I have created a basic program to import multiple xml files.

Posted 12-Jan-19 17:18pm

Primo Chalice

Updated 13-Jan-19 23:19pm

v2

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RickZeeland · Answer 1 · 2019-01-12T20:59:00

The simplest and probably fastest way might be to do a simple file based replace, you can read a file into a List<string> with File.ReadAllLines().
Then loop through all lines and replace the <credits> lines by deleting them and inserting at the new position.

Another way would be to use the XElement class, see: XElement Class (System.Xml.Linq) | Microsoft Docs[^]
and: Serializing XML Trees (C#) | Microsoft Docs[^]
This should get you started:

test.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<root>
  <image>
    <caption>This is a caption.</caption>
    <credits>This is a test sentence.</credits>
  </image>
  <image>
    <caption>This is a caption 2.</caption>
    <credits>This is a test sentence 2.</credits>
  </image>
</root>

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

string fileName = @"test2.xml";
var xmlSource = XElement.Load(fileName);
var xList = xmlSource.Elements("image");

foreach (var x in xList)
{
    if (x == null)
    {
        continue;
    }

    var credits = x.Element("credits");

    if (credits != null)
    {
        Debug.Print(credits?.Value);
        var c = credits;
        c.Remove();
    }
}

xmlSource.Save(fileName + "new");

Maciej Los · Answer 2 · 2019-01-13T23:19:00

It's quite simple. All you have to do is to:
1. loop through the collection of files in folder by using Directory.GetFiles Method (System.IO) | Microsoft Docs[^]
2. load each file (XDocument.Load Method (System.Xml.Linq) | Microsoft Docs[^])
3. find and remove "caption" nodes
4. and finally insert them in a root node:

C#

string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(@"YourPathhere", "*.xml")
foreach(string sFileName in files)
XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Load(sFileName);
List<XElement> nodes2move = xdoc.Descendants("credits").ToList();
foreach(var n in nodes2move)
{
	n.Remove();	
	xdoc.Root.AddFirst(n);
}
xdoc.Save(sFileName);

A new content of document should look like:

XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mydata>
  <credits>This is a test sentence.</credits>
  <image>
    <caption>This is a caption.</caption>
  </image>
</mydata>

For further details, please see:
XContainer.Elements Method (System.Xml.Linq) | Microsoft Docs[^]
XNode.Remove Method (System.Xml.Linq) | Microsoft Docs[^]
XContainer.AddFirst Method (System.Xml.Linq) | Microsoft Docs[^]

How do I replace text in multiple XML files?

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