XDocument or XmlDocument

Question

I am now learning XmlDocument but I ve just ran into XDocument and when I try to search the difference or benefits of them I can t find something useful  could you please tell me why you would use one over another

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XDocument is from the LINQ to XML API  and XmlDocument is the standard DOM-style API for XML  If you know DOM well  and don t want to learn LINQ to XML  go with XmlDocument  If you re new to both  check out this page that compares the two  and pick which one you like the looks of better   I ve just started using LINQ to XML  and I love the way you create an XML document using functional construction  It s really nice  DOM is clunky in comparison

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If you re using  NET version 3 0 or lower  you have to use XmlDocument aka the classic DOM API  Likewise you ll find there are some other APIs which will expect this   If you get the choice  however  I would thoroughly recommend using XDocument aka LINQ to XML  It s much simpler to create documents and process them  For example  it s the difference between   XmlDocument doc   new XmlDocument    XmlElement root   doc CreateElement  root    root SetAttribute  name    value    XmlElement child   doc CreateElement  child    child InnerText    text node   root AppendChild child   doc AppendChild root     and  XDocument doc   new XDocument      new XElement  root                    new XAttribute  name    value                     new XElement  child    text node        Namespaces are pretty easy to work with in LINQ to XML  unlike any other XML API I ve ever seen   XNamespace ns    http   somewhere com   XElement element   new XElement ns    elementName       etc   LINQ to XML also works really well with LINQ - its construction model allows you to build elements with sequences of sub-elements really easily      Customers is a List lt Customer gt  XElement customersElement   new XElement  customers       customers Select c   gt  new XElement  customer           new XAttribute  name   c Name           new XAttribute  lastSeen   c LastOrder          new XElement  address               new XAttribute  town   c Town               new XAttribute  firstline   c Address1                  etc           It s all a lot more declarative  which fits in with the general LINQ style   Now as Brannon mentioned  these are in-memory APIs rather than streaming ones  although XStreamingElement supports lazy output   XmlReader and XmlWriter are the normal ways of streaming XML in  NET  but you can mix all the APIs to some extent  For example  you can stream a large document but use LINQ to XML by positioning an XmlReader at the start of an element  reading an XElement from it and processing it  then moving on to the next element etc  There are various blog posts about this technique  here s one I found with a quick search

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Also  note that XDocument is supported in Xbox 360 and Windows Phone OS 7 0   If you target them  develop for XDocument or migrate from XmlDocument

User · Answer

I believe that XDocument makes a lot more object creation calls   I suspect that for when you re handling a lot of XML documents  XMLDocument will be faster   One place this happens is in managing scan data   Many scan tools output their data in XML  for obvious reasons    If you have to process a lot of these scan files  I think you ll have better performance with XMLDocument

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I am surprised none of the answers so far mentions the fact that XmlDocument provides no line information  while XDocument does  through the IXmlLineInfo interface    This can be a critical feature in some cases  for example if you want to report errors in an XML  or keep track of where elements are defined in general  and you better be aware of this before you happily start to implement using XmlDocument  to later discover you have to change it all

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As mentioned elsewhere  undoubtedly  Linq to Xml makes creation and alteration of xml documents a breeze in comparison to XmlDocument  and the XNamespace ns    elementName  syntax makes for pleasurable reading when dealing with namespaces   One thing worth mentioning for xsl and xpath die hards to note is that it IS possible to still execute arbitrary xpath 1 0 expressions on Linq 2 Xml XNodes by including   using System Xml XPath    and then we can navigate and project data using xpath via these extension methods    XPathSelectElement - Single Element XPathSelectElements - Node Set XPathEvaluate - Scalars and others   For instance  given the Xml document    lt xml gt       lt foo gt           lt baz id  1  gt 10 lt  baz gt           lt bar id  2  special  1  gt baa baa lt  bar gt           lt baz id  3  gt 20 lt  baz gt           lt bar id  4    gt           lt bar id  5    gt       lt  foo gt       lt foo id  123  gt Text 1 lt moo   gt Text 2      lt  foo gt   lt  xml gt    We can evaluate   var node   xele XPathSelectElement   xml foo  id  123      var nodes   xele XPathSelectElements     moo ancestor  xml descendant  baz  id  1   following-sibling  bar not  special  1       var sum   xele XPathEvaluate  sum   foo not moo   baz

User · Answer

XmlDocument is great for developers who are familiar with the XML DOM object model   It s been around for a while  and more or less corresponds to a W3C standard   It supports manual navigation as well as XPath node selection   XDocument powers the LINQ to XML feature in  NET 3 5   It makes heavy use of IEnumerable lt  gt  and can be easier to work with in straight C    Both document models require you to load the entire document into memory  unlike XmlReader for example

[c#] XDocument or XmlDocument

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