Can we import XML file into another XML file

Question

Can we import an XML file into another XML file    I mean is there any import tag in XML that takes XML path as parameter and imports XML  for which path is provided

User · Answer

The other answers cover the 2 most common approaches, Xinclude and XML external entities. Microsoft has a really great writeup on why one should prefer Xinclude, as well as several example implementations. I've quoted the comparison below:

Per http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa302291.aspx

Why XInclude?

The first question one may ask is "Why use XInclude instead of XML external entities?" The answer is that XML external entities have a number of well-known limitations and inconvenient implications, which effectively prevent them from being a general-purpose inclusion facility. Specifically:

An XML external entity cannot be a full-blown independent XML document—neither standalone XML declaration nor Doctype declaration is allowed. That effectively means an XML external entity itself cannot include other external entities.

An XML external entity must be well formed XML (not so bad at first glance, but imagine you want to include sample C# code into your XML document).

Failure to load an external entity is a fatal error; any recovery is strictly forbidden.

Only the whole external entity may be included, there is no way to include only a portion of a document. -External entities must be declared in a DTD or an internal subset. This opens a Pandora's Box full of implications, such as the fact that the document element must be named in Doctype declaration and that validating readers may require that the full content model of the document be defined in DTD among others.

The deficiencies of using XML external entities as an inclusion mechanism have been known for some time and in fact spawned the submission of the XML Inclusion Proposal to the W3C in 1999 by Microsoft and IBM. The proposal defined a processing model and syntax for a general-purpose XML inclusion facility.

Four years later, version 1.0 of the XML Inclusions, also known as Xinclude, is a Candidate Recommendation, which means that the W3C believes that it has been widely reviewed and satisfies the basic technical problems it set out to solve, but is not yet a full recommendation.

Another good site which provides a variety of example implementations is https://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/07/31/xinclude.html. Below is a common use case example from their site:

<book xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">

  <title>The Wit and Wisdom of George W. Bush</title>

  <xi:include href="malapropisms.xml"/>

  <xi:include href="mispronunciations.xml"/>

  <xi:include href="madeupwords.xml"/>

</book>

User · Answer

This feature is called XML Inclusions  XInclude   Some examples    http   en wikipedia org wiki XInclude http   msdn microsoft com en-us library aa302291 aspx

User · Answer

Mads Hansen s solution is good but to succeed in reading the external file in  NET 4 took some time to figure out using hints in the comments about resolvers  ProhibitDTD and so on   This is how it s done           XmlReaderSettings settings   new XmlReaderSettings            settings DtdProcessing   DtdProcessing Parse          XmlUrlResolver resolver   new XmlUrlResolver            resolver Credentials   System Net CredentialCache DefaultCredentials          settings XmlResolver   resolver          var reader   XmlReader Create  logfile xml   settings           XmlDocument doc   new XmlDocument            doc Load reader           foreach  XmlElement element in doc SelectNodes    event                          var ch   element ChildNodes              var count   ch Count              logfile xml    lt  xml version  1 0   gt   lt  DOCTYPE logfile    lt  ENTITY events      SYSTEM  events txt  gt    gt   lt logfile gt   amp events   lt  logfile gt    events txt    lt event gt       lt item1 gt item1 lt  item1 gt       lt item2 gt item2 lt  item2 gt   lt  event gt

User · Answer

You could use an external  parsed  general entity   You declare the entity like this    lt  ENTITY otherFile SYSTEM  otherFile xml  gt    Then you reference it like this    amp otherFile    A complete example    lt  xml version  1 0  standalone  no    gt   lt  DOCTYPE doc    lt  ENTITY otherFile SYSTEM  otherFile xml  gt    gt   lt doc gt     lt foo gt       lt bar gt  amp otherFile  lt  bar gt     lt  foo gt   lt  doc gt    When the XML parser reads the file  it will expand the entity reference and include the referenced XML file as part of the content   If the  otherFile xml  contained   lt baz gt this is my content lt  baz gt   Then the XML would be evaluated and  seen  by an XML parser as    lt  xml version  1 0  standalone  no    gt   lt doc gt     lt foo gt       lt bar gt  lt baz gt this is my content lt  baz gt  lt  bar gt     lt  foo gt   lt  doc gt    A few references that might be helpful    http   www xml com pub a 98 08 xmlqna2 html http   xmlwriter net xml guide entity declaration shtml http   www javacommerce com displaypage jsp name entities sql amp id 18238

[xml] Can we import XML file into another XML file?

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