Quick Tutorial

Using Chilkat XML to create, navigate, and manipulate XML data files is easy. There is only one object (ChilkatXml) and this represents a node in an XML document.

To begin, here is some sample XML data:

<contact lastModified="1/20/2002" lastEmailed="1/28/2002">
    <name>John Smith</name>
    <email>john@chilkatsoft.com</email>
    <address>
        <street>1700 Pennsylvania Ave.</street>
        <city>Wheaton</city>
        <state>Illinois</state>
        <zip>60187</zip>
    </address>
</contact>

When this XML is loaded with the LoadXml or LoadXmlFile methods, we get a tree of ChilkatXml objects that looks like this:

Each node in the tree above is a ChilkatXml object. Each node has a tag, content, 0 or more attributes, and 0 or more children. (The tags are displayed in the tree above) A Visual Basic program that reads this sample XML data is shown below,and following it is the output produced.

    ' The ChilkatXml component cannot be placed on the Visual Basic form,
    ' and must be created dynamically.
    Dim rootNode As ChilkatXml
    Set rootNode = New ChilkatXml
    
    rootNode.LoadXmlFile ("tutorial.xml")
    
    Dim nameNode As ChilkatXml
    Set nameNode = rootNode.GetChildWithTag("name")
    
    Dim emailNode As ChilkatXml
    Set emailNode = rootNode.GetChildWithTag("email")
    
    Dim addressNode As ChilkatXml
    Set addressNode = rootNode.GetChildWithTag("address")
    
    Dim streetNode As ChilkatXml
    Set streetNode = addressNode.GetChildWithTag("street")
    
    Dim cityNode As ChilkatXml
    Set cityNode = addressNode.GetChildWithTag("city")
    
    Dim stateNode As ChilkatXml
    Set stateNode = addressNode.GetChildWithTag("state")
    
    Dim zipNode As ChilkatXml
    Set zipNode = addressNode.GetChildWithTag("zip")
    
    Text1.Text = "rootNode: tag=[" + rootNode.Tag + _
        "] content=[" + rootNode.Content + "]" + vbCrLf
    Text1.Text = Text1.Text + "  1st attribute: name=[" + _
        rootNode.GetAttributeName(0) + "] value=[" + _
        rootNode.GetAttributeValue(0) + "]" + vbCrLf
    Text1.Text = Text1.Text + "  2nd attribute: name=[" + _
        rootNode.GetAttributeName(1) + "] value=[" + _
        rootNode.GetAttributeValue(1) + "]" + vbCrLf
    Text1.Text = Text1.Text + "nameNode: tag=[" + nameNode.Tag + _
        "] content=[" + nameNode.Content + "]" + vbCrLf
    Text1.Text = Text1.Text + "emailNode: tag=[" + emailNode.Tag + _
        "] content=[" + emailNode.Content + "]" + vbCrLf
    Text1.Text = Text1.Text + "addressNode: tag=[" + addressNode.Tag + _
        "] content=[" + addressNode.Content + "]" + vbCrLf
    Text1.Text = Text1.Text + "streetNode: tag=[" + streetNode.Tag + _
        "] content=[" + streetNode.Content + "]" + vbCrLf
    Text1.Text = Text1.Text + "cityNode: tag=[" + cityNode.Tag + _
        "] content=[" + cityNode.Content + "]" + vbCrLf
    Text1.Text = Text1.Text + "stateNode: tag=[" + stateNode.Tag + _
        "] content=[" + stateNode.Content + "]" + vbCrLf
    Text1.Text = Text1.Text + "zipNode: tag=[" + zipNode.Tag + _
        "] content=[" + zipNode.Content + "]" + vbCrLf

The output for the program above is:

rootNode: tag=[contact] content=[]
  1st attribute: name=[lastModified] value=[1/20/2002]
  2nd attribute: name=[lastEmailed] value=[1/28/2002]
nameNode: tag=[name] content=[John Smith]
emailNode: tag=[email] content=[john@chilkatsoft.com]
addressNode: tag=[address] content=[]
streetNode: tag=[street] content=[1700 Pennsylvania Ave.]
cityNode: tag=[city] content=[Wheaton]
stateNode: tag=[state] content=[Illinois]
zipNode: tag=[zip] content=[60187]