Creating XML Documents using LINQ to XML

LINQ to XML is a popular framework for working with XML documents in .NET. It provides an intuitive syntax that allows you to create, modify, and query XML documents. In this tutorial, we'll learn how to create XML documents using LINQ to XML.

Syntax

The following code snippets show the basic syntax for creating an XML document using LINQ to XML:

// Create a new XML document
XDocument doc = new XDocument(
    new XElement("root",
        new XElement("element1", "value1"),
        new XElement("element2", "value2")
    )
);

// Add attributes to an XML element
XElement element = new XElement("book",
    new XAttribute("id", "123456"),
    new XAttribute("lang", "en"),
    new XElement("title", "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"),
    new XElement("author", "Mark Twain")
);

Example

Let's create a simple XML document using LINQ to XML:

using System.Xml.Linq;

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        XDocument doc = new XDocument(
            new XElement("books",
                new XElement("book",
                    new XAttribute("id", "101"),
                    new XElement("title", "The Lord of the Rings"),
                    new XElement("author", "J.R.R. Tolkien")
                ),
                new XElement("book",
                    new XAttribute("id", "102"),
                    new XElement("title", "The Hobbit"),
                    new XElement("author", "J.R.R. Tolkien")
                )
            )
        );

        Console.WriteLine(doc.ToString());
    }
}

The above code will create an XML document that looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<books>
  <book id="101">
    <title>The Lord of the Rings</title>
    <author>J.R.R. Tolkien</author>
  </book>
  <book id="102">
    <title>The Hobbit</title>
    <author>J.R.R. Tolkien</author>
  </book>
</books>

Output

The output of the above code will be:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<books>
  <book id="101">
    <title>The Lord of the Rings</title>
    <author>J.R.R. Tolkien</author>
  </book>
  <book id="102">
    <title>The Hobbit</title>
    <author>J.R.R. Tolkien</author>
  </book>
</books>

Explanation

The above code creates an XML document using LINQ to XML. The XDocument class represents an XML document. It can contain zero or more XElement objects, which represent elements in the XML document.

Use

You can use LINQ to XML to create XML documents in .NET applications. This is useful when you need to generate an XML document for serialization or data interchange purposes.

Important Points

• LINQ to XML provides an easy-to-use syntax for creating XML documents.
• XElement objects can contain other XElement objects, providing a hierarchical structure for the XML document.
• XAttribute objects can be used to add attributes to an XElement object.

Summary

In this tutorial, we learned how to create XML documents using LINQ to XML. We saw the basic syntax for creating an XML document, adding attributes to an XML element, and creating a simple XML document. LINQ to XML provides an intuitive syntax that makes it easy to create and modify XML documents in .NET applications.