CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netxml
5YrsLaterDBA
5YrsLaterDBA

Reputation: 34820

xml error code file

we are thinking use xml file to store our error codes for our C# application. for the following two structures, which one is better?

<error>
<code>0x00000001</code>
<description>Error PIB: Clamp</description>
<reaction>Display</reaction>
</error>

or 

<error code=0x00000001 >
<description>Error PIB: Clamp</description>
<reaction>Display</reaction>
</error>

or your better suggestion?

seems the second one save some space and easiler for lookup through it?

I need to get the description and reaction string by lookup the error code. do you have an effective way to lookup through file?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1259

Answers (2)

joe_coolish
joe_coolish

Reputation: 7259

In general, if you want the code to describe the element, make it an attribute. If you want the code to be an element (meaning that the code will also require attributes or even sub information) make it a child.

In your code, option 2 is best IMO

Upvotes: 1

Jon Skeet
Jon Skeet

Reputation: 1503120

If you were after space-saving techniques, I would suggest not using XML in the first place :)

Personally I prefer the second approach over the first, but both will work. If this is really just for lookup, I'd suggest that when you load the file, you convert it to a Dictionary<String, ErrorInformation> or something similar. (You could make the key value a numeric type instead, but that would require parsing the value of course.)

LINQ to XML makes it really easy to do this sort of conversion:

XDocument xml = XDocument.Load("errorcodes.xml");
var dictionary = xml.Descendants("error")
                    .ToDictionary(element => (string) element.Attribute("code"),
                                  element => new ErrorInformation(
                                      (string) element.Element("description"),
                                      (string) element.Element("reaction")));

Upvotes: 4

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