Today I needed to load in an XML file into memory for later use. At first I was going to use the XmlDocument library (old habits die hard), but later switched over to the XDocument library.  Why, not because one is better (ok, so I think that XDocument is better, but not the point here), but because it caused me less friction (which I guess does make it better).

Consider this need.  I have a list of XML files on disk and I would like to convert them to a list of XML documents. 

Below is my original code using the XmlDocument library:

...

IList returnDocument = new List< XDocument >();
foreach ( string file in files )
{
        XmlDocument xmlDocument = new XmlDocument();
        xmlDocument.Load( file );
	returnDocument.Add( xmlDocument );
}

...

Below is my new code using the XDocument library:

....
IList returnDocument = new List< XDocument >();

foreach ( string file in files )
{
	returnDocument.Add( XDocument.Load( file ) );
}
....

Now there is no real difference in what each example does, but there is a difference in how I have to accomplish my need. 

Using the XmlDocument library I need to create an instance, load the instance and finally put it into my return array.

Using the XDocument library, I can simply use the static Load to accomplish this in a single line.

+1 for less code.

Till next time,

[----- Remember to check out DimeCasts.Net -----]