(VB.NET) XML Tree Traversal Order for Search* Methods

The Chilkat XML API provides a number of Search* methods for locating XML nodes based on criteria. These methods traverse an XML document in a breadth-first order. (See Breadth-First Search).

The XML document used in this example has the following tree structure:

The nodes are traversed in the order: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K.

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

<a>crocodileA
    <b>crocodileB
        <d>crocodileD</d>
        <e>crocodileE
            <h>crocodileH</h>
            <i>crocodileI</i>
        </e>
    </b>
    <c>crocodileC
        <f>crocodileF</f>
        <g>crocodileG
            <j>crocodileJ</j>
            <k>crocodileK</k>
        </g>
    </c>
</a>

Chilkat .NET Downloads Chilkat .NET Framework Chilkat for .NET Core

Dim xml As New Chilkat.Xml
Dim xBeginAfter As Chilkat.Xml
Dim xFound As Chilkat.Xml

Dim success As Boolean
' The sample input XML is available at http://www.chilkatsoft.com/data/searchOrder.xml
success = xml.LoadXmlFile("searchOrder.xml")
If (success <> True) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(xml.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If


' IMPORTANT:  The following loop for iterating over all 
' matching nodes performs reasonably well for small to 
' mid-size XML documents or sub-trees.  Performance
' can be poor when the sub-tree contains many thousands
' of nodes (or more).

' NOTE:  The search is always rooted at the calling node.
' In this example, it happens to also be the root node of the entire
' XML document.  Searches can be performed on sub-trees
' within the document by calling the Search* method from
' the root node of a sub-tree.

' Demonstrate the breadth-first traversal:
xBeginAfter = xml.GetSelf()
xFound = xml.SearchAllForContent(xBeginAfter,"*croc*")
While (xml.LastMethodSuccess = True)

    Debug.WriteLine(xFound.Tag)


    xBeginAfter = xFound
    xFound = xml.SearchAllForContent(xBeginAfter,"*croc*")
End While