Rob Garrett - Blogs

I have gone back in time this week to work on a legacy ISAPI application.  The ISAPI application is being developed in C++ and makes use of MSXML to read an XML configuration file.  Below is some code in C++ to open the XML file and read two text values, contained in element nodes:
BOOL GetConfigDetails(string &userName, string &domain) { BOOL result = FALSE; if (0 != configFilename && _tcslen(configFilename) > 0) { try { // Create a DOM Document. // CComPtr smart pointer will release our COM handle. CComPtr<MSXML2::IXMLDOMDocument> pItfcDoc = 0; HRESULT hr = pItfcDoc.CoCreateInstance(__uuidof(MSXML2::DOMDocument60)); if (SUCCEEDED(hr)) { // Load the config file. if (VARIANT_TRUE == pItfcDoc->load(configFilename)) { // Look for the username and domain nodes. CComPtr<MSXML2::IXMLDOMNode> pItfcNode = 0; pItfcNode = pItfcDoc->selectSingleNode(_bstr_t("/ISAPIStub/username")); userName = 0 != pItfcNode ? pItfcNode->Gettext() : _bstr_t(""); pItfcNode = pItfcDoc->selectSingleNode(_bstr_t("/ISAPIStub/domain")); domain = 0 != pItfcNode ? pItfcNode->Gettext() : _bstr_t(""); result = TRUE; } } } catch (_com_error) { result = FALSE; } } return result; }
Now, here is the code in C#:
public bool GetConfigDetails(out string userName, out string domain) { bool result = false; userName = domain = String.Empty; if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(configFilename)) { try { XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument(); doc.Load(configFilename); XmlNode node = doc.SelectSingleNode("/ISAPIStub/username"); userName = (null != node) ? node.InnerText : String.Empty; node = doc.SelectSingleNode("/ISAPIStub/domain"); domain = (null != node) ? node.InnerText : String.Empty; } catch { result = false; } } return result; }
Much easier huh?  See how far we've come as developers.  Whilst writing my ISAPI application I had to remember to go back and clean up my memory allocations because there is no friendly garbage collector doing it for me - doh.