Bulk Insert data into SQL database with XML file in ASP.Net using C#

Introduction

This article explains how to upload bulk data (records) in SQL Server Database using XML file in ASP.Net using C# and VB.Net.
SQL Server 2005 onwards we can pass a parameter of XML data type to the Stored Procedure and also we can easily parse the XML and extract its Attribute and Tag values. 

HTML

<asp:FileUpload ID = "FileUpload1" runat = "server" />
<asp:Button ID="Button1" Text="Upload XML" runat="server" OnClick="UploadXML" />

XML File 

The following XML file (Customers.xml) file contains the records of Customers. The data is stored as attribute and within the tags. 

 <?xmlversion="1.0"standalone="yes"?>
<Customers>
 <CustomerId ="1">
    <Name>ABC</Name>
    <Country>United States</Country>
 </Customer>
 <CustomerId = "2">
    <Name>VEPSH</Name>
    <Country>India</Country>
 </Customer>
    <CustomerId ="3">
    <Name>XYZ</Name>
    <Country>France</Country>
 </Customer>
    <CustomerId ="4">
    <Name>jhone</Name>
    <Country>Russia</Country>
 </Customer>
</Customers>

 The Stored Procedure for parsing XML data

The below stored procedure is accepting a parameter of type XML (which would be passed from the code behind). This XML object is parsed and the Attribute and Tag values are fetched and inserted into the Table.
The nodes function of the XML data type is uses XQuery expression to pull out the XML nodes from the XML, for this case I need to fetch the Customer nodes and hence the expression is i.e. /Customers/Customer where Customers is the Root Node and Customer is the child node.
Once the nodes are fetched we need to extract the attribute and tag Inner Text values. For fetching the Inner Text values between the Tags we need to make use of the values function.
The values function can read the Attribute as well as the Inner Text.
Attribute
In order to read the attribute we need to pass the name of the Attribute prefix with @ and its data type, in this example the attribute Id is fetched using Customer.value('@Id', 'INT').
Inner Text
In order to fetch the inner text we need to pass the name of the Tag and its data type. The Inner Text of the XML tag is fetched using text function and we also make use of an index [1] which means it should fetch only the first matched value.
Finally the values are inserted into the CustomerDetails table.

 SQL-Server

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[InsertXML]
@xml XML
AS
BEGIN
      SET NOCOUNT ON;

      INSERT INTO CustomerDetails
      SELECT
      Customer.value('@Id','INT') AS Id, --ATTRIBUTE
      Customer.value('(Name/text())[1]','VARCHAR(100)') AS Name, --TAG
      Customer.value('(Country/text())[1]','VARCHAR(100)') AS Country --TAG
      FROM
      @xml.nodes('/Customers/Customer')AS TEMPTABLE(Customer)
END

Bulk Insert data into SQL database using XML file in ASP.Net using C#.

When the Upload button is clicked, the XML file is uploaded and then saved to a folder. The file is then read and the XML string is passed as parameter to the Stored Procedure which inserts the XML file data into the CustomerDetails table.

protected void UploadXML(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    string fileName = Path.GetFileName(FileUpload1.PostedFile.FileName);
    string filePath = Server.MapPath("~/Uploads/") + fileName;
    FileUpload1.SaveAs(filePath);
    string xml = File.ReadAllText(filePath);
    string constr = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["constr"].ConnectionString;
    using (SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(constr))
    {
        using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("InsertXML"))
        {
            cmd.Connection = con;
            cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
            cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@xml", xml);
            con.Open();
            cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();
            con.Close();
        }
    }
}