Identifying the Markup of a Node

The Inner Text of a node

In the previous sections, we have seen how to create a tag to produce a node. We also saw that a node could be placed inside of another node. The combined text of the values of the children of a node is available through its XmlNode.InnerText property which is declared as follows:

public virtual string InnerText{get; set};

This property concatenates the values of the children of the node that called them and doesn't include their markups. Here is an example:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml;

namespace VideoCollection1
{
    class Program
    {
        static int Main(string[] args)
        {
            string strFilename = "Videos.xml";
            XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();

            if (File.Exists(strFilename))
            {
                xmlDoc.Load(strFilename);
                XmlElement elm = xmlDoc.DocumentElement;
                Console.WriteLine("{0}", elm.InnerText);
            }
            else
                Console.WriteLine("The file {0} could not be located",
                                  strFilename);

            Console.WriteLine();
            return 0;
        }
    }
}

This would produce:

The Distinguished GentlemanJonathan Lynn112 MinutesDVDRHer AlibiBruce Beresford9
4 MinsDVDPG-13Chalte ChalteAziz Mirza145 MinsDVDN/R

Press any key to continue . . .

Notice that this property produces all values of the children of a node in one block. We already saw how to access each value of the children of a node by calling the XmlTextReader.Read() method and get its Text.

If you want to get a node, its markup, its child(ren) and its(their) markup(s), you can access its XmlNode.OuterXml property which is declared as follows:

public virtual string OuterXml{get};

Here is an example:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml;

namespace VideoCollection1
{
    class Program
    {
        static int Main(string[] args)
        {
            string strFilename = "Videos.xml";
            XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();

            if (File.Exists(strFilename))
            {
                xmlDoc.Load(strFilename);
                XmlElement elm = xmlDoc.DocumentElement;
                Console.WriteLine("{0}", elm.OuterXml);
            }
            else
                Console.WriteLine("The file {0} could not be located",
                                  strFilename);

            Console.WriteLine();
            return 0;
        }
    }
}

This would produce:

<Videos><Video><Title>The Distinguished Gentleman</Title><Director>Jonathan Lynn
</Director><Length>112 Minutes</Length><Format>DVD</Format><Rating>R</Rating></V
ideo><Video><Title>Her Alibi</Title><Director>Bruce Beresford</Director><Length>
94 Mins</Length><Format>DVD</Format><Rating>PG-13</Rating></Video><Video><Title>
Chalte Chalte</Title><Director>Aziz Mirza</Director><Length>145 Mins</Length><Fo
rmat>DVD</Format><Rating>N/R</Rating></Video></Videos>

Press any key to continue . . .

If you want only the markup(s) of the child(ren) excluding the parent, access its XmlNode.InnerXml property which is declared as follows:

public virtual string InnerXml{get};

Here is an example:

Console.WriteLine("{0}", elm.InnerXml);

This would produce:

<Video><Title>The Distinguished Gentleman</Title><Director>Jonathan Lynn</Direct
or><Length>112 Minutes</Length><Format>DVD</Format><Rating>R</Rating></Video><Vi
deo><Title>Her Alibi</Title><Director>Bruce Beresford</Director><Length>94 Mins<
/Length><Format>DVD</Format><Rating>PG-13</Rating></Video><Video><Title>Chalte C
halte</Title><Director>Aziz Mirza</Director><Length>145 Mins</Length><Format>DVD
</Format><Rating>N/R</Rating></Video>

Press any key to continue . . .