Accessing XML Data

To access XML data while building a report, you can use facilities of DataSet to read XML into it and then pass it to the engine as a data source. However, if your scenario does not permit to specify XML schema while loading XML into DataSet, all attributes and text values of XML elements are loaded as strings then. Thus, it becomes impossible, for example, to use arithmetic operations on numbers or to specify custom date-time and numeric formats to output corresponding values, because all of them are treated as strings.

To overcome this limitation, you can pass an XmlDataSource instance to the engine as a data source instead. Even when XML schema is not provided, XmlDataSource is capable to recognize values of the following types by their string representations:

• Int64?
• Double?
• Boolean?
• DateTime?

Note – For recognition of data types to work, string representations of corresponding attributes and text values of XML elements must be formed using invariant culture settings.

While loading data to XmlDataSource, the engine performs actions typical for XML deserialization behind the scenes: It maps complex-type XML elements to internal objects and simple-type XML elements to fields of containing objects. So, in template documents, an XmlDataSource instance should be treated as an object having corresponding fields and nested objects as shown in the following example.

XML

<Person>
	<Name>John Doe</Name>
	<Age>30</Age>
	<Birth>1989-04-01 4:00:00 pm</Birth>
	<Child>Ann Doe</Child>
	<Child>Charles Doe</Child>
</Person>

Template document

Name: <<[Name]>>, Age: <<[Age]>>, Date of Birth:
<<[Birth]:"dd.MM.yyyy">>

Children:
<<foreach [in Child]>><<[Child_Text]>>
<</foreach>>

Source code

Document doc = ...             // Loading a template document.
XmlDataSource dataSource = ... // Loading XML.

ReportingEngine engine = new ReportingEngine();
engine.BuildReport(doc, dataSource);

Result document

Name: John Doe, Age: 30, Date of Birth: 01.04.1989
Children:
Ann Doe
Charles Doe

Note – To reference a sequence of repeated simple-type XML elements with the same name, the elements’ name itself (for example, “Child”) should be used in a template document, whereas the same name with the “_Text” suffix (for example, “Child_Text”) should be used to reference the text value of one of these elements.

By default, if a root XML element contains only a sequence of elements of one type, the engine does not generate an internal root object while loading XML data. So, in template documents, such an XmlDataSource instance should be treated as a sequence of corresponding nested objects as shown in the following example.

XML

<Persons>
	<Person>
		<Name>John Doe</Name>
		<Age>30</Age>
		<Birth>1989-04-01 4:00:00 pm</Birth>
	</Person>
	<Person>
		<Name>Jane Doe</Name>
		<Age>27</Age>
		<Birth>1992-01-31 07:00:00 am</Birth>
	</Person>
	<Person>
		<Name>John Smith</Name>
		<Age>51</Age>
		<Birth>1968-03-08 1:00:00 pm</Birth>
	</Person>
</Persons>

Template document

<<foreach [in persons]>>Name: <<[Name]>>, Age: <<[Age]>>, Date of Birth: <<[Birth]:"dd.MM.yyyy">>
<</foreach>>

Average age: <<[persons.Average(p => p.Age)]>>

Source code

Document doc = ...             // Loading a template document.
XmlDataSource dataSource = ... // Loading XML (without schema).

ReportingEngine engine = new ReportingEngine();
engine.BuildReport(doc, dataSource, "persons");

Result document

Name: John Doe, Age: 30, Date of Birth: 01.04.1989
Name: Jane Doe, Age: 27, Date of Birth: 31.01.1992
Name: John Smith, Age: 51, Date of Birth: 08.03.1968

Average age: 36

However, if your scenario requires an internal object for a root XML element to be always generated while loading data to XmlDataSource, you can force this as shown in the following code snippet.

XmlDataLoadOptions options = new XmlDataLoadOptions();
options.AlwaysGenerateRootObject = true;
XmlDataSource dataSource = new XmlDataSource(..., options);

The following example sums up typical scenarios involving nested complex-type XML elements.

XML

<Managers>
	<Manager>
		<Name>John Smith</Name>
		<Contract>
			<Client>
				<Name>A Company</Name>
			</Client>
			<Price>1200000</Price>
		</Contract>
		<Contract>
			<Client>
				<Name>B Ltd.</Name>
			</Client>
			<Price>750000</Price>
		</Contract>
		<Contract>
			<Client>
				<Name>C &amp; D</Name>
			</Client>
			<Price>350000</Price>
		</Contract>
	</Manager>
	<Manager>
		<Name>Tony Anderson</Name>
		<Contract>
			<Client>
				<Name>E Corp.</Name>
			</Client>
			<Price>650000</Price>
		</Contract>
		<Contract>
			<Client>
				<Name>F &amp; Partners</Name>
			</Client>
			<Price>550000</Price>
		</Contract>
	</Manager>
	<Manager>
		<Name>July James</Name>
		<Contract>
			<Client>
				<Name>G &amp; Co.</Name>
			</Client>
			<Price>350000</Price>
		</Contract>
		<Contract>
			<Client>
				<Name>H Group</Name>
			</Client>
			<Price>250000</Price>
		</Contract>
		<Contract>
			<Client>
				<Name>I &amp; Sons</Name>
			</Client>
			<Price>100000</Price>
		</Contract>
		<Contract>
			<Client>
				<Name>J Ent.</Name>
			</Client>
			<Price>100000</Price>
		</Contract>
	</Manager>
</Managers>

Template document

<<foreach [in managers]>>Manager: <<[Name]>>
Contracts:
<<foreach [in Contract]>>- <<[Client.Name]>> ($<<[Price]>>)
<</foreach>>
<</foreach>>

Source code

Document doc = ...             // Loading a template document.
XmlDataSource dataSource = ... // Loading XML.
    
ReportingEngine engine = new ReportingEngine();
engine.BuildReport(doc, dataSource, "managers");

Result document

Manager: John Smith
Contracts:
- A Company ($1200000)
- B Ltd. ($750000)
- C & D ($350000)
  

Manager: Tony Anderson
Contracts:
- E Corp. ($650000)
- F & Partners ($550000)
  

Manager: July James
Contracts:
- G & Co. ($350000)
- H Group ($250000)
- I & Sons ($100000)
- J Ent. ($100000)