In one of my previous articles we saw how we can make a menu using XML file Creating Menu Using XML file. In this article we will see that how we can populate a DropDownList control with XML file as a source.

Introduction:

In one of my previous articles we saw how we can make a menu using XML file Creating Menu Using XML file. In this article we will see that how we can populate a DropDownList control with XML file as a source.

XML FILE: 

Our XML file looks something like below which simply contains the name of the clients.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <names> <name> <client>hank</client> </name> <name> <client>corry</client> </name> <name> <client>david</client> </name> <name> <client>james</client> </name> </names>

Filling a DropDownList with XML file:

Now we want to fill the DropDownList with the contents contained in the XML file. Don't forget to include the namespace System.XML.

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument(); doc.Load(Server.MapPath("Menu.xml")); XmlNodeList nodeList = doc.SelectNodes("names/name"); foreach(XmlNode node in nodeList) DropDownList1.Items.Add(new ListItem(node.SelectSingleNode("client").InnerText));

All we are doing is making an object of the XmlDocument class. Than we read the XML file, dig down in the nodes and selects the nodes that we want. And finally add those node's inner text to the DropDownList items.

I hope you liked the article, happy coding.