VB.NET - XmlWriter, Create XML File

XmlWriter. This class generates an XML document using code. There are several ways to do this. But the XmlWriter type is one of the oldest and most reliable ways.

XmlReader

Some notes. We present a reliable way to generate XML files in the VB.NET language. Though XmlWriter is not the simplest way to generate XML, it is reliable and fast.

File

Example. We introduce the Employee class, and Main, which writes the XML file. The Employee class holds the ID, first name, last name, and salary of each employee.

Sub

Next The XmlWriterSettings is created. We do this to ensure that the resulting XML file will have whitespace and will be readable.

Then WriteStartDocument is invoked. This writes the header line of the XML file to the disk. The root element Employees is created.

Info Elements are written with values from the fields in the Employee class. After the For Each terminates, the document is ended.

For

Imports System.Xml Module XmlModule ''' <summary> ''' Employee type. ''' </summary> Class Employee Public Sub New(ByVal id As Integer, ByVal firstName As String, _ ByVal lastName As String, ByVal salary As Integer) ' Set fields. Me._id = id Me._firstName = firstName Me._lastName = lastName Me._salary = salary End Sub ' Storage of employee data. Public _firstName As String Public _id As Integer Public _lastName As String Public _salary As Integer End Class Sub Main() ' Create array of employees. Dim employees(2) As Employee employees(0) = New Employee(1, "Prakash", "Rangan", 70000) employees(1) = New Employee(5, "Norah", "Miller", 21000) employees(2) = New Employee(17, "Cecil", "Walker", 60000) ' Create XmlWriterSettings. Dim settings As XmlWriterSettings = New XmlWriterSettings() settings.Indent = True ' Create XmlWriter. Using writer As XmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create("C:\employees.xml", settings) ' Begin writing. writer.WriteStartDocument() writer.WriteStartElement("Employees") ' Root. ' Loop over employees in array. Dim employee As Employee For Each employee In employees writer.WriteStartElement("Employee") writer.WriteElementString("ID", employee._id.ToString) writer.WriteElementString("FirstName", employee._firstName) writer.WriteElementString("LastName", employee._lastName) writer.WriteElementString("Salary", employee._salary.ToString) writer.WriteEndElement() Next ' End document. writer.WriteEndElement() writer.WriteEndDocument() End Using End Sub End Module

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Employees> <Employee> <ID>1</ID> <FirstName>Prakash</FirstName> <LastName>Rangan</LastName> <Salary>70000</Salary> </Employee> <Employee> <ID>5</ID> <FirstName>Norah</FirstName> <LastName>Miller</LastName> <Salary>21000</Salary> </Employee> <Employee> <ID>17</ID> <FirstName>Cecil</FirstName> <LastName>Walker</LastName> <Salary>60000</Salary> </Employee> </Employees>

Discussion. You could change the Employee class to use properties instead of public fields. This can sometimes create more useful abstractions for object-oriented designs.

Property

Also The data inside the employee array could be acquired from another data source, such as a Windows Forms control or a database server.

Summary. The XmlWriter type makes generating XML files much easier. You could just manually print out the XML file. But this usually results in confusing code.