Convert XML file to csv file format in c#

Question

I am using accord.net mouse gesture recognition sample application, which saves the file in above xml format. I need help to convert above xml in to CSV format so i can do machine learning using accord.net Dynamic time warping. I can not figure out how to convert in to csv file.

For example: 261,210,261,214,261,229,261,231

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ArrayOfSequence xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <Sequence>
    
    <SourcePath>
      <Point>
        <X>261</X>
        <Y>210</Y>
      </Point>
      <Point>
        <X>261</X>
        <Y>214</Y>
      </Point>
      <Point>
        <X>261</X>
        <Y>227</Y>
      </Point>
      <Point>
        <X>261</X>
        <Y>229</Y>
      </Point>
      <Point>
        <X>261</X>
        <Y>231</Y>
      </Point>
      <Point>
        <X>261</X>
        <Y>234</Y>
      </Point>
      <Point>
        <X>261</X>
        <Y>237</Y>
      </Point>
</Sequence>
</ArrayOfSequence>

Answer 1

using System.IO;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

You can do like this:

public class Sequence
{
    public Point[] SourcePath { get; set; }
}

using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(@"D:\youXMLFile.xml", FileMode.Open))
{
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Sequence[]));
    var data=(Sequence[]) serializer.Deserialize(fs);
    List<string> list = new List<string>();
    foreach(var item in data)
    {
        List<string> ss = new List<string>();
        foreach (var point in item.SourcePath) ss.Add(point.X + "," + point.Y);
        list.Add(string.Join(",", ss));
    }
    File.WriteAllLines("D:\\csvFile.csv", list);
}

Answer 2

In an alternate way you can use leverage the power of XSLT to convert it,

Steps

• Create an Xml stylesheet to convert xml to csv
• Use XslCompiledTransform() to convert get the csv string
• save the csv string to a file

You may came up with an Xslt like this, call it data.xsl

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
  <xsl:output method="text" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"/>
  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:for-each select="//Point">
      <xsl:value-of select="X"/>,<xsl:value-of select="Y"/>
      <xsl:text>&#xD;&#xA;</xsl:text>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

and use the following method

public static string ToCSV(string xmlTextDate, string xsltFile)
{
  string result = string.Empty;
  var xpathDoc = new XPathDocument(xmlTextDate);
  var xsltTransform = new System.Xml.Xsl.XslCompiledTransform();
  xsltTransform.Load(xsltFile);

  using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
  {
      var writer = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.UTF8);
      using (var rd = new StreamReader(ms))
      {
          var argList = new System.Xml.Xsl.XsltArgumentList();
          xsltTransform.Transform(xpathDoc, argList, writer);
          ms.Position = 0;
          result = rd.ReadToEnd();
      }
  }
  return result;
}

and call it like this

var csvString = ToCSV("yourfile.xml","data.xsl");