Entity Framework - how to store XML in database

Question

I'm creating a DbContext, but I cannot handle storing XML in my database. Is there any other approach than parsing xml to string and saving it as string property in model?

I would like to store my News as XML below:

<News>
  <Language value="en-GB">
    <Title>Example One</Title>
    <Date>25/05/2017 12:12:12</Date>
    <Content>Simple <b>HTML</b> content!</Content>
    <Miniature>
      <File ID="816c9bcc-a9fc-4390-9bdc-52c8a0ae75be">
        <Title>File 1</Title>
        <Extension>JPG</Extension>
        <Path>Server path</Path>
        <Thumbnail>Server path to thumbnail</Thumbnail>
      </File>
    </Miniature>
    <Images>
      <File ID="bd4c6a21-243f-44cb-9456-7dd596d7ed9f">
        <Title>File 2</Title>
        <Extension>JPG</Extension>
        <Path>Server path</Path>
        <Thumbnail>Server path to thumbnail</Thumbnail>
      </File>
      <File ID="50d4966c-9381-4d28-b289-8a0a8a29433b">
        <Title>File 3</Title>
        <Extension>PNG</Extension>
        <Path>Server path</Path>
        <Thumbnail>Server path to thumbnail</Thumbnail>
      </File>
    </Images>
  </Language>
  <Language value="en-US">
    <Title>Example One</Title>
    <Date>25/05/2017 12:12:12</Date>
    <Content>
      Simple <i>UNITED STATES</i> <b>HTML</b> content!
    </Content>
    <Miniature>
      <File ID="816c9bcc-a9fc-4390-9bdc-52c8a0ae75be">
        <Title>File 4</Title>
        <Extension>JPG</Extension>
        <Path>Server path</Path>
        <Thumbnail>Server path to thumbnail</Thumbnail>
      </File>
    </Miniature>
    <Images>
      <File ID="bd4c6a21-243f-44cb-9456-7dd596d7ed9f">
        <Title>File 2</Title>
        <Extension>JPG</Extension>
        <Path>Server path</Path>
        <Thumbnail>Server path to thumbnail</Thumbnail>
      </File>
    </Images>
  </Language>
</News>

And my File as:

<File>
  <Title>File 2</Title>
  <Extension>JPG</Extension>
  <Path>Server path</Path>
  <Thumbnail>Server path to thumbnail</Thumbnail>
</File>

I can simply do this and while doing CRUD operations just parse XML to string and save it in Details:

public class News
{
    public Guid ID {get;set;}
    public string Details {get;set;}
}

But is there any other way to do this? Like using Serialization attribute or something? How can I achieve that?

Thanks in advance!

Serialization is doing the same it's parsing your xml object to string. — Samvel Petrosov
– Samvel Petrosov, Commented May 25, 2017 at 17:38
Are you asking if there is a way to make EF automatically deserialize the XML for you? — Joshua Evensen
– Joshua Evensen, Commented May 25, 2017 at 17:52
Yeah, that I could access my properties from this class in code and for example change it and save it. — Ashiv3r
– Ashiv3r, Commented May 25, 2017 at 17:53

Fahadsk · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-25 18:16:45Z

1

You should use LINQ to XML instead.

XDocument fileXml = XDocument.Load(path);
var files = from files in fileXml.Descendants("File")
select new {
    Title = file.Attribute("Title").Value,
    Extension = file.Element("Extension").Value,
    Path = file.Element("Path").Value,
    Thumbnail = file.Element("Thumbnail").Value
};

foreach (var file in files)
{
    // Do other operations with each student object
}

answered May 25, 2017 at 18:16

Fahadsk

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3 Comments

Ashiv3r Over a year ago

I know how to operate on XML files, but I don't want to store it on my server as XML file, but as XML column in database.

Fahadsk Over a year ago

What do you mean by "I don't want to store it on my server as XML file, but as XML column in database" ?

Ashiv3r Over a year ago

Your answer is about reading xml file from path. I don't wanna do this, I want to read it from database. In SQL you can have column with XML type. How to store it as XML column in Entity Framework?

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