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XML in the .NET Framework

XML is a meta-markup language that provides a format for describing structured data. XML enables a new generation of Web-based data viewing and manipulation applications. XML is the universal language for data on the Web. XML gives developers the power to deliver structured data from a wide variety of applications to the desktop for local computation and presentation.

System.Xml Namespace

This set of topics covers the usage of the XML classes in the System.Xml namespace.

This namespace has a comprehensive set of XML classes for parsing, validation, and manipulation of XML data by using readers, writers, and World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) DOM-compliant components. It also covers XML Path Language (XPath) queries and Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT). The following list contains the main classes in the XML namespace:

The XmlTextReader class provides fast, non-cached, forward-only read access to XML data.
The XmlNodeReader class provides an XmlReader over the given DOM node subtree.
The XmlValidatingReader class provides DTD, XDR, and XSD Schema validation.
The XmlTextWriter class provides a fast, forward-only way of generating XML.
The XmlDocument class implements the W3C Document Object Model level 1 Core and the Core DOM Level 2
The XmlDataDocument class provides an implementation of an XmlDocument that can be associated with a DataSet. Structured XML can be viewed and manipulated simultaneously through the DataSet's relational representation or the XmlDataDocument's tree representation. For more information, see How Do I...Use XML and the DataSet class?
The XPathDocument class provides a fast and performant cache for XML document processing for XSLT.
The XPathNavigator class provides a W3C XPath 1.0 data model over a store with a cursor style model for navigation.
The XslCompiledTransform class is a W3C XSLT 1.0 specification compliant XSLT processor for transforming XML documents.
The XmlSchema Object Model classes provide a navigable set of classes which directly reflect the W3C XSD specification. They provide the ability to programmatically create an XSD schema.
The XmlSchemaSet class provides a library of XDR and XSD schemas. These schemas, cached in memory, provide fast, parse-time validation for the XmlValidatingReader.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Conformance

The classes in this namespace conform to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifications and so provide a comprehensive set of XML tools for building Web applications and any scenario which relies upon XML data exchange.

Note about catching exceptions

These QuickStarts are designed to let the .NET Framework catch all exceptions. In a production application, you would catch and handle specific exceptions. See the .NET Framework Help for more details about exception handling.