Discussions

Sven Groot said:

Simply use the XmlNode.OwnerDocument property to get a reference to the document that a particular node belongs to.

I suppose I could do that, but then that would spaghetti my code up.

With my method, I can take an xml node from any document, and parse it into my variables. Then, I can generate the xml node from within the class that uses those variables, and pass that node to any xml document handler class for storage.

Thus, I can easily store this node in the main applications xml config file, as well as create mini import/exmport templates in xml format for people to share their configs with others.

Thanks for the reply.

Apparently you cannot simply create an XmlNode outside of an XmlDocument..

So, here is what I ended up doing.

Inside of my main config class, I have this property:

public XmlNode FormSettings
{
	get
	{
		return XmlDoc.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("/configuration/" + cfgSettings.formSettings);
	}
	set
	{
		XmlNode Root = XmlDoc.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("/configuration/" + cfgSettings.formSettings);
		if (Root == null)
		{
			Root = XmlDoc.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("/configuration");
			XmlNode newNode = XmlDoc.CreateNode(XmlNodeType.Element, cfgSettings.formSettings, "");
			Root = Root.AppendChild(newNode);
		}
		else
			Root.RemoveAll();
		for (int node = 0 ; node < value.ChildNodes.Count ; node++)
		{
			XmlElement Element = XmlDoc.CreateElement(value.ChildNodes[node].Name);
			for (int attrib = 0 ; attrib < value.ChildNodes[node].Attributes.Count ; attrib++)
				Element.SetAttribute(value.ChildNodes[node].Attributes[attrib].LocalName, value.ChildNodes[node].Attributes[attrib].Value);
			Root.AppendChild(Element); 
		}
	}
}

I can easily parse that node wherever I want, without needing a reference to xmlDoc.

This allows me to put all of the code to build/parse/manage a particular forms config inside of that form class itself, instead of having to put it in the main applicaitons config file class.

To build a node I use the following code:

public XmlNode ConvertToXmlNode()
{
	XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();

	System.Xml.XmlNode Node = xmlDoc.CreateNode(XmlNodeType.Element, "Config", "");

	System.Xml.XmlElement Element = null;

	Element = xmlDoc.CreateElement("Image"); Element.SetAttribute("value", Image); Node.AppendChild(Element);
	
Element = xmlDoc.CreateElement("Background_Color"); Element.SetAttribute("value", Background_Color.ToArgb().ToString()); Node.AppendChild(Element);

	Element = xmlDoc.CreateElement("AntiAlias"); Element.SetAttribute("value", AntiAlias.ToString()); Node.AppendChild(Element);

	return Node;
}

This works very well and makes managing code and configs for many diferent forms much easier than the previous method where I defined all of the configurable params inside of the parent xml/cfg class itself.

Now I can easily insert/remove forms/modules to my app without having to hack up a config class as well with a ton of properties.

I hope this helps someone searching in the future...

I'm stumped on this one, been googling for hours...

I have a central xmldoc that I use to store all of my app settings, etc..

What I'm trying to do is simply pull an entire node from that file into one of my child forms where I can parse it out.

In the child form I also want to build a new node from new settings and pass it back into my central xmldoc config.

I need to do this without holding a reference to the parent xmlDoc.

I simply want to build an xmlNode from scratch, but I cannot figure out how without using XmlDoc to .CreateElement();

Certainly there has to be a way to XmlNode.CreateElemenet or XmlNode.AppendChild(new xmlElement())...

Any pointers would be much apperciated.

Thanks a bunch!

evildictaitor wrote:

If you're releasing complex algorithms (such as compilers, or solution solvers or hashes or implementing protected network protocols) which might legitimately be sought after with the intent of gaining knowledge or algorihms (but not code) then you should be looking to build those algorithms in C and use a commercial grade obfuscatior over it.

Its not arrogance. Please don't be so close minded.

We develop software tools that interface with hardware built by others..

(These are just examples to get open your thought processes)
For example, it could be iPods, cell phones, pda's, etc.. devices built by vendors who we have no communication with and in many cases do not even know about us.

So in our src is methods and keys to access these "devices". So yes, to do what we do you would have to write the SAME exact code as there is one and only one way to do these things. These keys and methods are also not published by the manufacturers and are VERY, i repeat _VERY_ hard to come by.

And I know someone is going to say to put these secure pieces in a native dll or something else.. however the methods and keys are not as simple as you would think. They are actually very complicated and are really embedded into the parent .net program. To extract them into a seperate DLL would really muck up the entire program structure..

I think the list I came up with on the first page is a great list.