c# - Comment xml elements programmatically

Question

I have an xml file like below,

<configuration>
    <property>
      <name>name</name>
      <value>dinesh</value>
    </property>
    <property>
      <name>city</name>
      <value>Delhi</value>
    </property>
</configuration>

My requirement is I need to comment / uncomment properties programmatically at runtime based on property's name like below;

<configuration>
    <!-- <property>
      <name>name</name>
      <value>dinesh</value>
    </property> -->
    <property>
      <name>city</name>
      <value>Delhi</value>
    </property>
</configuration>

Is there any direct way to achive this via XDocument / XmlDocument traversal? I just gone through code like below from this question,

XmlComment DirCom = doc.CreateComment(XmlElementName.OuterXml);
doc.InsertAfter(DirCom, XmlElementName);    
doc.RemoveChild(XmlElementName)

Is the above code usage a right approach?

Answer 1

You can do it easily with XDocument

var xDocument = XDocument.Parse(@"<configuration>
                                    <property>
                                      <name>name</name>
                                      <value>dinesh</value>
                                    </property>
                                    <property>
                                      <name>city</name>
                                      <value>Delhi</value>
                                    </property>
                                </configuration>");

var firstPropertyElement = xDocument
    .Descendants("property")
    .First();//Find your element
var xComment = new XComment(firstPropertyElement.ToString());//Create comment
firstPropertyElement.ReplaceWith(xComment);//Replace the element with comment 
Console.WriteLine(xDocument);

Which outputs:

<configuration>
  <!--<property>
  <name>name</name>
  <value>dinesh</value>
</property>-->
  <property>
    <name>city</name>
    <value>Delhi</value>
  </property>
</configuration>