Sorting with the XMLdatasource control

[barrylowe]

I have a gridview which is bound to an XMLdatasource control.

Everything is working perfectly apart from the sorting functionality. I am aware that sorting is not supported by the XMLdatasource.

Can anyone tell me the easiest way around this problem?

 

[jmeckley]

don't use datasource controls. as you can see they are very limiting. I would load the xml file into an xml document. I would then parse the xml document into full objects. add these objects to a list. then you can search/sort the list and bind the list to the grid.

Jason Meckley
Programmer
Specialty Bakers, Inc.

 

[barrylowe]

Yeah, I was trying to utilise the built-in functionality that the XMLdatasource provides and to be honest with the exception of the sorting it has worked a treat.

I actually have an XMLDocument object loaded in that page which I use for other little pieces of dynamic coding, however I am still using the XMLDatasource for the grid binding.

Can you explain what you mean by parsing the Document into full ojects?

 

[jbenson001]

How about loading the XML in to a dataset and use dataviews to sort your list?

 

[jmeckley]

Can you explain what you mean by parsing the Document into full ojects?

map nodes/attributes to Pocos (plain old compiled objects)

public class Foo
{
   public int Number {get;set;}
   public string Text {get;set;}
   public DateTime Date {get;set;}
}

public class Mapper
{
   public Foo MapFrom(XmlNode node)
   {
      Foo foo = new Foo();
      foo.Number = int.Parse(node.Attributes["id"]);
      foo.Text = node.Value;
      foo.Date = DateTime.Parse(node.Attributes["TimeStamp");]
   } 
}

public class FooService
{
     public List<Foo> GetAll(IComparer<Foo> sorting)
     {
         List<Foo> foos = new List<Foo>();
         foreach(XmlNode node in xmlDoc.Nodes)
         {
             foos.Add(mapper.MapFrom(node);
         }
         foos.Sort(sorting);
         return foos;
     }
}

Jason Meckley
Programmer
Specialty Bakers, Inc.