How to read key value from plist (xml) in C#

Question

I just want to get string for softwareVersionBundleId & bundle version keys how can i store it into dictionary so that i can able to get easily?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>genre</key>
    <string>Application</string>
    <key>bundleVersion</key>
    <string>2.0.1</string>
    <key>itemName</key>
    <string>AppName</string>
    <key>kind</key>
    <string>software</string>
    <key>playlistName</key>
    <string>AppName</string>
    <key>softwareIconNeedsShine</key>
    <true/>
    <key>softwareVersionBundleId</key>
    <string>com.company.appname</string>
</dict>
</plist>

i tried the following code.

            XDocument docs = XDocument.Load(newFilePath);
            var elements = docs.Descendants("dict");
            Dictionary<string, string> keyValues = new Dictionary<string, string>();



            foreach(var a in elements)
            {

               string key= a.Attribute("key").Value.ToString();
               string value=a.Attribute("string").Value.ToString();
                keyValues.Add(key,value); 
            }

It is throwing object reference exception.

Answer 1

<key> along with <string> or <true/> aren't attributes, they are child elements of <dict> that are paired by proximity. To build your dictionary, you need to zip them together, like so:

        var keyValues = docs.Descendants("dict")
            .SelectMany(d => d.Elements("key").Zip(d.Elements().Where(e => e.Name != "key"), (k, v) => new { Key = k, Value = v }))
            .ToDictionary(i => i.Key.Value, i => i.Value.Value);

And the result is a dictionary containing:

 { "genre": "Application", "bundleVersion": "2.0.1", "itemName": "AppName", "kind": "software", "playlistName": "AppName", "softwareIconNeedsShine": "", "softwareVersionBundleId": "com.company.appname" } 

Answer 2

There is an error in

a.Attribute("key").Value

Cause there is no attribute. You should use Name and Value property instead of attribute

More details you can check: XMLElement

foreach(var a in elements)
{
    var key= a.Name;
    var value = a.Value;
    keyValues.Add(key,value); 
}

There is another way for this approach

var keyValues = elements.ToDictionary(elm => elm.Name, elm => elm.Value);

Answer 3

You can try this Nuget package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/PListDeserializer/ Or git: https://github.com/maksgithub/PListSerializer

class MyClass
{
    [PlistName("genre")]
    public string Genre { get; set; }

    [PlistName("bundleVersion")]
    public string BundleVersion { get; set; }

    [PlistName("itemName")]
    public string ItemName { get; set; }

    [PlistName("kind")]
    public string Kind { get; set; }

    [PlistName("playlistName")]
    public string PlaylistName { get; set; }

    [PlistName("softwareIconNeedsShine")]
    public bool SoftwareIconNeedsShine { get; set; }

    [PlistName("softwareVersionBundleId")]
    public string SoftwareVersionBundleId { get; set; }
}


var byteArray = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(YourPlist.plist);
var stream = new MemoryStream(byteArray);
var node = PList.Load(stream);
var deserializer = new Deserializer()
deserializer.Deserialize<MyClass>(rootNode);