Converting NameValue pair entity to XML

Question

I have the following code, to store a web service name value pair response into DB. I am saving it in xml column of DB. Kindly highlight the issues with this approach. Please note that the name value pair (i.e response.details) array is dynamic and i cannot directly map it to individual db columns.

XElement ex = new XElement("ServiceResponse","");
 for (int i = 0; i < response.details.Length; i++)
 {
 string Name = Regex.Replace(response.details[i].name.Trim(),@"[^A-Za-z0-9.]+","");
 ex.Add(new XElement("Details",new XElement(Name, response.details[i].value)));
 }
using (DBDataContext con = new DBDataContext())
 {
 con.Requests.InsertOnSubmit(new Nettium.FraudManagementBase.DataContext.Request
 {
 response = ex
 }
 );
 con.SubmitChanges();
 }

Thanks

Answer 1

You could achieve a little more readability using Linq2Xml like this:

var ex = new XElement("ServiceResponse",
 response.details.Select(detail => 
 new XElement("Details", 
 new XElement(CleanName(detail.name), detail.value))));

I have moved the line of code that performs some kind of cleaning on the detail's name to a separate method, like so:

private static string CleanName(string name)
{
 return Regex.Replace(name.Trim(), @"[^A-Za-z0-9.]+", "");
}

You could rename this method to communicate better what it does (for me it's not really obvious).

Two more things:

• it's good to follow the C# naming guidelines. In your code, the local variables begin with a capital letter and the public fields/properties of the Request and Detail classes begin with lowercase letters. It should be the other way around.

• you could add a using Nettium.FraudManagementBase.DataContext; clause at the top of the file. The data access code will look like this:

  using (DBDataContext con = new DBDataContext())
  {
   con.Requests.InsertOnSubmit(new Request { response = ex });
   con.SubmitChanges();
  }
  

which is much cleaner IMO.

So, the final code could look like this:

var xml = new XElement("ServiceResponse",
 response.Details.Select(detail => 
 new XElement("Details", 
 new XElement(CleanName(detail.Name), detail.Value))));
using (DBDataContext con = new DBDataContext())
{
 con.Requests.InsertOnSubmit(new Request { Response = xml });
 con.SubmitChanges();
}