VB6 and XML

[echozero]

Hi all,

Have a problem reading and searching XML with VB6.

First of all, I have an XML file that goes roughly like this:

<calltypes>
	<calltype>
		<category>Undetermined</category>
		<type>000 Type of incident undetermined</type>
		<type>008 Type of action taken not reported due to industrial action</type>
	</calltype>
	<calltype>
		<category>Fire and Explosions</category>
		<type>100 Fire or Explosion; insuff info to classify</type>
		<type>109 Fire or Explosion not classified</type>
	</calltype>

Now what I want to do is display the 'category' contents in one combo box (I've got that going fine), but then once I've selected a category, it populates a second combo box with the 'type' entries from that node.

So, as an example using the XML above, in the first combo I select "Fire and Explosions". Then, the second combo would have the entries "100 Fire or Explosion; insuff info to classify" and "109 Fire or Explosion not classified" in it.

As I mentioned, I have the first combo box reading from the XML file with no problems at all. Now I just need to get it reading the 'types' according to the selection.

I'm using VB6 Enterprise, MSXML 5 is doing the actual dirty work reading from the XML file.

My questions are:

- Is the structure of the XML file suitable?
- If so, how would I grab the 'type' fields depending on which 'category' is selected?

Happy to post up any code or information as required. When we're done I'll be sure to post the source code for anyone else who needs help.

Thanks for your help!

[Phil Weber]

I recommend that you change the file structure so that the <type> elements are children of the associated <category>:

<calltypes>
	<calltype>
		<category id="Undetermined">
			<type>000 Type of incident undetermined</type>
			<type>008 Type of action taken not reported due to industrial action</type>
		</category>
	</calltype>
	<calltype>
		<category id="Fire and Explosions">
			<type>100 Fire or Explosion; insuff info to classify</type>
			<type>109 Fire or Explosion not classified</type>
		</category>
	</calltype>
</calltypes>

To populate the Category combo, do this:

    Dim doc As DOMDocument30
    Dim nodes As IXMLDOMNodeList
    Dim node As IXMLDOMNode

    Set doc = New DOMDocument30
    doc.Load "d:\path\calltypes.xml"
    Set nodes = doc.selectNodes("//category")
    For Each node In nodes
        cboCategory.AddItem node.Attributes.getNamedItem("id").Text
    Next

Then, given the text of the selected category, populate the second combo like this:

    Set node = doc.selectSingleNode("//category[@id='" & cboCategory.Text & "']")
    Set nodes = node.childNodes
    For Each node In nodes
        cboType.AddItem node.Text
    Next

[echozero]

Thanks for your help Phil, it's truly appreciated.

I altered the XML file to suit your recommendation, and used the code you posted, but unfortunately still without luck.

    Set doc = New DOMDocument30
    doc.Load App.Path & "\calltypes.xml"
    Set nodes = doc.selectNodes("//category")
    For Each node In nodes
        cboCategory.AddItem node.Attributes.getNamedItem("id").Text
    Next

When populating the Category combo using the above code, on line 4 above it appears not to find any nodes, because it skips the AddItem line and goes right on past Next.

Any thoughts on that one?

Also, looking at the XML file, would you agree that the <calltype> level is now redundant?

Thanks again for your valuable assistance.

Cam

[Phil Weber]

Please post your XML file. The code should work (I tested it before I posted).

[echozero]

Ah ha! That's done it. I ran the XML file through a checker (should have done that before) and turned out I had a double quotation mark 50 lines down that killed it.

Works perfectly now, thanks very much for your help!

Cam