Converting CSV to XML and then to C# Object List

Recently I was working on a project where I had to convert a CSV file to XML.
CSV was generated from a database table. Later that XML has to be converted to C# list and used in the project as setting values.

I'll use a sample csv data here that contains information about few students like their roll number, name and marks in various subjects

Create a C# Console application and add csv file in Resources folder. I'm naming it StudentMarks.csv.

	roll_no	name	physics	chemistry	maths	biology	english
	1	Abhinav	83	80	89	79	92
	2	Chang	78	64	94	72	83
	3	Dexter	75	86	79	92	68
	4	Francis	68	91	64	94	72
	5	Glen	80	89	79	93	56
	6	Harry	52	87	86	79	92
	7	Kapil	98	79	92	79	92
	8	Manoj	79	92	89	89	91
	9	Preeti	98	97	93	95	93
	10	Sonia	65	75	80	89	79

view raw StudentMarks.csv hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Open Properties of StudentMarks.csv by right clicking on it. Then change value of Copy to Output Directory to Copy Always.
Then we will create a Student Class
Now in the MainProgram.cs create a method to convert CSV to XML. It accepts two paramters one for input csvFilePath and other for output xmlFilePath

	public static void convertCsvToXml(string csvFilePath, string xmlFilePath)
	{
	var lines = File.ReadAllLines(csvFilePath);
	//Getting header values from first line
	string[] headers = lines[0].Split(',').Select(x => x).ToArray();
	var xml = new XElement("StudentMarks",
	lines.Where((line, index) => index > 0)
	.Select((line, i) => new XElement("Student",
	line.Split(',').Select((column, index) => new XElement(headers[index], column)))));
	xml.Save(xmlFilePath);
	}

view raw MainProgram.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

First we are reading all the lines of csv file as list of strings. Then we will extract the header values from first line which will be used as xml attributes for data values. After that we will convert rest of the lines into XElement object and use the extracted header values to create xml attributes.
The Resulting XML will look like following

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
	<StudentMarks>
	<Student>
	<roll_no>1</roll_no>
	<name>Abhinav</name>
	<physics>83</physics>
	<chemistry>80</chemistry>
	<maths>89</maths>
	<biology>79</biology>
	<english>92</english>
	</Student>
	...
	</StudentMarks>

view raw gistfile1.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Now add one more method to convert from XML to C# list. This method accepts filepath of XML file and returns List of Students Object.
Here we will use XDocument class to load XML values and then Linq query to get the list.

	public static List<Student> convertXMLtoList(string filePath)
	{
	XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(filePath);
	List<Student> studentsMarks = doc.Descendants("Student").Select(x => new Student()
	{
	RollNo = int.Parse(x.Element("roll_no").Value),
	Name = x.Element("name").Value,
	Physics = short.Parse(x.Element("physics").Value),
	Chemistry = short.Parse(x.Element("chemistry").Value),
	Maths = short.Parse(x.Element("maths").Value),
	Biology = short.Parse(x.Element("biology").Value),
	English = short.Parse(x.Element("english").Value)
	}).ToList();
	return studentsMarks;
	}

view raw MainProgram.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Now from the Main Method call above created methods with proper parameter values.

	static void Main(string[] args)
	{
	//Both the paths points to bin\debug folder of project
	string csvFilePath = @".\Resources\StudentMarks.csv";
	string xmlFilePath = @".\Resources\StudentMarks.xml";
	//Converting CSV to XML, comment out after running once.
	convertCsvToXml(csvFilePath, xmlFilePath);
	//Converting XML to C# List
	var studentsMarks = convertXMLtoList(xmlFilePath);
	//For verification
	foreach (var student in studentsMarks)
	{
	Console.Out.WriteLine(student.Name);
	}
	}

view raw MainProgram.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

That’s it. I've shared the solution folder at https://github.com/kushdilip/CSharp_Experiments/.

 For any doubts please comment.