How do I create an XML file to hold file listings.

Question

1.33/5 (2 votes)

See more:

Hi,

I am trying to create a VB.NET application that among other things lists the contents of a directory and sub directories and saves the output into an XML file.

The reason i would like an XML file is so i can save other information about each file: Size, Modification date and Path.

I got as far as recursively querying the directory and creating an XML of paths as strings. But when I created a structure for the modification date and size i got a bit lost.

Any help and or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance Chris.

Posted 7-Feb-14 5:05am

chris pavey

Updated 7-Feb-14 5:09am

v2

Add a Solution

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 7-Feb-14 11:10am

What have you tried so far?
"...a bit lost" is not informative at all. Why "XML of paths as strings"?..
—SA

chris pavey 7-Feb-14 11:27am

Maybe i need to explain what I'm trying to create and see if anyone has any better ideas to achieve what I'm trying to achieve.

I have an ftp server and a client. The client interrogatives the server and recursively searches the directories on the server. It creates a collection of files stored on the server. it then compares this to its local collection of files. And downloads files it doesn't have and newer versions of files.

The issue is this is slow and quite insecure as it sends a lot of commands over the internet for all this listing.

My solution is to create a XML on the server and one on the local machine. Then the client would only need to download that XML and then compare that to their local XML. this would instantly give you the list of new files to download.

At first i was going to make a .txt file but i thought an XML would suit this purpose better because of the additional information I wanted to include.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 7-Feb-14 13:35pm

I answered on how to do it. Did you see my answer? First of all, don't generate any XML text manually.
—SA

2 solutions

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Answer 1 · 2014-02-07T05:12:00

Please see my comment to the question.

As .NET FCL offers different ways to write and parse XML, you need to choose one you prefer and go ahead, not trying to manually compose XML strings:

Use System.Xml.XmlDocument class. It implements DOM interface; this way is the easiest and good enough if the size if the document is not too big.
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmldocument.aspx[^].
Use the classes System.Xml.XmlTextWriter and System.Xml.XmlTextReader; this is the fastest way of reading, especially is you need to skip some data.
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlwriter.aspx[^], http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlreader.aspx[^].
Use the class System.Xml.Linq.XDocument; this is the most adequate way similar to that of XmlDocument, supporting LINQ to XML Programming.
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmldocument.aspx[^], http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb387063.aspx[^].

—SA

chris pavey · Answer 2 · 2014-02-07T05:23:00

Maybe i need to explain what I'm trying to create and see if anyone has any better ideas to achieve what I'm trying to achieve.

I have an ftp server and a client. The client interrogatives the server and recursively searches the directories on the server. It creates a collection of files stored on the server. it then compares this to its local collection of files. And downloads files it doesn't have and newer versions of files.

The issue is this is slow and quite insecure as it sends a lot of commands over the internet for all this listing.

My solution is to create a XML on the server and one on the local machine. Then the client would only need to download that XML and then compare that to their local XML. this would instantly give you the list of new files to download.

At first i was going to make a .txt file but i thought an XML would suit this purpose better because of the additional information I wanted to include.

How do I create an XML file to hold file listings.

2 solutions

Solution 1

Solution 2

Add your solution here

Preview 0