Sorting

[Guest Eregnon]

Is there any way of sorting an xml file in vb.net? The two methods described in the documentation - select and dataview.sort - don't seem to physically reorder the records.

[Derek Stone]

Order is, in most cases, rather irrelevant when it comes to XML, so I doubt the framework includes built-in methods for rearranging the entries in the XML file.

[Guest Eregnon]

How about rearranging the order of any file, or doing any sorting at all? I've got an xml file I read into a dataset that is bound to controls on a form - using the binding context. No matter how I set the select or default view sort criteria, it always displays in the order of the file.

[Guest Eregnon]

Never mind, I figured out how to do it. Here's a quick sample in case anyone's interested:

       Dim dsTemp As New DataSet
       Dim dRows() As DataRow
       Dim dsReal as new DataSet

       dsTemp.ReadXml("xmlfilename.xml", XmlReadMode.Auto)
       dRows = dsTemp.Tables("tablename").Select("", "DisplayOrder")


       For k = 0 To dRows.Length - 1
           dsReal.Tables("tablename").ImportRow(dRows(k))
     
       Next

You have to use importrow, since using the rows.add method generates an error. Kind of clumsy, but if you need the physical order of a file changed, I think this is the only way to do it.