Create XML Files using Linq

In one my previous blog posts, I had briefly touched upon XSD to create XML files. LINQ offers a similar, yet much faster feature to create XML files.

Here’s how you can quickly create an XML file from a database table.
The database table is created in a database named Movies on my SQLServer Express database. It has two columns MovieId and Title.

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Xml.Linq;

namespace XMLFileCreator
{
    class XmlCreator
    {
        private static SqlConnection _sqlConn; 
        static void Main()
        {
            DbConnect();
            CreateXml(FetchRecords());
            _sqlConn.Close();
        }
        static DataTable FetchRecords()
        {
            const string sqlStr = "SELECT * FROM Movies";
            var sqlCommand = new SqlCommand()
            {
                Connection = _sqlConn,
                CommandText = sqlStr,
                CommandType = CommandType.Text
            };

            var adapter = new SqlDataAdapter(sqlCommand);
            var dt = new DataTable();
            adapter.Fill(dt);
            Console.WriteLine(String.Format("No of Movie Titles:\t{0}", dt.Rows.Count));
            return dt;
        }
        static void DbConnect()
        {
            _sqlConn = new SqlConnection()
                          {
                              ConnectionString = @"Server=.\SQLExpress;Database=Movies;Trusted_Connection=True;"
                          };
            _sqlConn.Open();
        }
        static void CreateXml(DataTable dataTable)
        {
            var movieDoc = new XDocument
                (new XElement("Root", new XAttribute("DataType", "MovieListing"),
                     new XElement("MovieCollection")));
            foreach (DataRow dataRow in dataTable.Rows)
            {
                    var movieTitle = new XElement("Id", new XAttribute("MovieId",dataRow["MovieId"]), 
                                        new XElement("Title", dataRow["Title"]));
                    if (movieDoc.Root != null) movieDoc.Root.Element("MovieCollection").Add(movieTitle);
            }
            XDocument outputDoc = XDocument.Load(movieDoc.CreateReader());
            outputDoc.Save(@"movieList.xml");

        }
    }
}

VBScript GetExtension

This is how you can read file extensions in VBScript.

Function GetExt(fileName)
    Dim pos, name, xtn
    pos = InstrRev(fileName,".")
    xtn = Mid(fileName,pos+1)
    name = Mid(fileName,1,pos-1)
    GetExt = xtn
    'Wscript.Echo(name)
    'Wscript.Echo(xtn)
End Function

VBScript LPad function.

I needed this for some work related stuff. Since VBScript doesn’t have a native lpad function, I wrote this one.

'Test Padding
Wscript.Echo Lpad(12456,10,"*")

Function Lpad(strInput, length, character)
    Dim strOutput
    If Len(strInput) >= length Then
        strOutput = strInput
    Else
        Do While Len(strOutput) <= length - Len(strInput) -1
            strOutput = character & strOutput 
        Loop
        strOutput = strOutput & strInput
    End if
    Lpad = strOutput
End Function