How to get depth of current XML-node with C# and XMLReader

Question

I tried with Reader.Depth but the function returns completely false numbers. The XML-file is extremely huge, so here´s just a little example:

Node1
  Node1.2
     Node1.2.1
        Node1.2.1.1
        ...........
     Node1.2.2
  Node2.2
Noce2

You got the idea.

So how can I get the real depth of every node? Reader.depth does not work right, it always returns "2", no matter which node I use it on.

Here´s the code snippet:

while (reader2.Read())
        {
            if (reader2.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Element)
            {
                switch (reader2.Name)
                {
                    case "the_node":
                        the_node = new My_Node();
                        list_myNodes.Add(the_node);
                        the_node.howdeep = reader2.Depth;
                        break;

                    case "name":
                    [......]

                    case "argument":
                    [......]
                }
            }
        } 

Later, I get all the right values, name is right, argument is right, all the others are right... only the depth is wrong

Answer 1

Did u try using XMLTextReader ?

You can find the MSDN documentation here !

Additionally see the code snippet from the MSDN documentation below.

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

public class Sample{

  public static void Main(){

    // Create the XML fragment to be parsed. 
    string xmlFrag  = 
    @"<book> 
         <misc>
           <style>paperback</style> 
           <pages>240</pages>
         </misc> 
        </book>";

    // Create the XmlNamespaceManager.
    NameTable nt = new NameTable();
    XmlNamespaceManager nsmgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(nt);

    // Create the XmlParserContext.
    XmlParserContext context = new XmlParserContext(null, nsmgr, null, XmlSpace.None);

    // Create the reader.
    XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(xmlFrag, XmlNodeType.Element, context);

    // Parse the XML and display each node. 
    while (reader.Read()){
       switch (reader.NodeType){
         case XmlNodeType.Element:
           Console.Write("{0} {1},{2}  ", reader.Depth, reader.LineNumber, reader.LinePosition);
           Console.WriteLine("<{0}>", reader.Name);
           break;
         case XmlNodeType.Text:
           Console.Write("{0} {1},{2}  ", reader.Depth, reader.LineNumber, reader.LinePosition);
           Console.WriteLine("  {0}", reader.Value);
           break;
         case XmlNodeType.EndElement:
           Console.Write("{0} {1},{2}  ", reader.Depth, reader.LineNumber, reader.LinePosition);
           Console.WriteLine("</{0}>", reader.Name);
           break;
       }       
    }           

    // Close the reader.
    reader.Close();      
  }
}