Visual FoxPro

Removing / Deleting Child Nodes from XML

See more XML Examples

Demonstrates various methods for removing child nodes from an XML document.

The input XML, available at http://www.chilkatsoft.com/data/fruit.xml, is this:

<root>
    <fruit color="red">apple</fruit>
    <fruit color="green">pear</fruit>
    <veg color="orange">carrot</veg>
    <meat animal="cow">beef</meat>
    <xyz>
        <fruit color="blue">blueberry</fruit>
        <veg color="green">broccoli</veg>
    </xyz>
    <fruit color="purple">grape</fruit>
    <cheese color="yellow">cheddar</cheese>
</root>

Visual FoxPro

LOCAL lnSuccess
LOCAL loXml
LOCAL loXyz

lnSuccess = 0

loXml = CreateObject('Chilkat.Xml')

* The sample input XML is available at http://www.chilkatsoft.com/data/fruit.xml
lnSuccess = loXml.LoadXmlFile("fruit.xml")
IF (lnSuccess <> 1) THEN
    ? loXml.LastErrorText
    RELEASE loXml
    CANCEL
ENDIF

* The RemoveChild method removes (discards) all direct
* children having the specified tag:
loXml.RemoveChild("fruit")

* Show the resulting XML:
? 'Result with all direct children having a tag equal to "fruit" removed:'
? loXml.GetXml()

* The XML with the "fruit" direct children removed is shown below:
* Notice that the "fruit" node beneath "xyz" was not removed.
* This correct because it was not a direct child of the calling node.

* <root>
*     <veg color="orange">carrot</veg>
*     <meat animal="cow">beef</meat>
*     <xyz>
*         <fruit color="blue">blueberry</fruit>
*         <veg color="green">broccoli</veg>
*     </xyz>
*     <cheese color="yellow">cheddar</cheese>
* </root>

* --------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Restore the original XML:
lnSuccess = loXml.LoadXmlFile("fruit.xml")

* The RemoveChildWithContent method removes the child
* having the exact content specified, regardless of the tag.  
* For example:
loXml.RemoveChildWithContent("pear")

* Show the resulting XML:
? 'Result with the node containing "pear" removed:'
? loXml.GetXml()

* --------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Restore the original XML:
lnSuccess = loXml.LoadXmlFile("fruit.xml")

* The RemoveChildByIndex method removes the Nth direct
* child.  Indexing begins at 0.  The "xyz" child is at index 4:
loXml.RemoveChildByIndex(4)

* Show the resulting XML:
* Notice that the entire "xyz" subtree is removed.
? "Result with the node at index 4 removed:"
? loXml.GetXml()

* --------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Restore the original XML:
lnSuccess = loXml.LoadXmlFile("fruit.xml")

* Navigate to the node with tag "xyz"
loXyz = loXml.FindChild("xyz")

* Remove the "xyz" subtree making it it's own XML document
* with the "xyz" node at the root:
loXyz.RemoveFromTree()

* Show both XML documents:
? loXyz.GetXml()
? loXml.GetXml()

* Also, the TreeId property is an integer value assigned
* to nodes in an XML document.  All nodes belonging to
* the same XML document will have the same TreeId.
* Notice that the "xyz" node now has a different TreeId:
? "xyz TreeId = " + STR(loXyz.TreeId)
? "xml TreeId = " + STR(loXml.TreeId)

RELEASE loXyz

RELEASE loXml