XMLTextReader - Find Max Depth

[Kevin Marois]

XMLTextReader has a depth property that returns the depth of the current node. Anyone know a way to determine the maximum depth? I guess I could read through the file first, but that doesn't seem very efficient.

Everything makes sense in someone's mind

[Heath Stewart]

Until you read through the file, the XML reader wouldn't know anyway (even if, as another example, you used an XPathNavigator to search only leaf nodes). But a better question is why you need to find depth? Because to do so may be considered inefficient, maybe first you should determine if you really need to.

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[BobJanova]

XML doesn't include structure metadata in a header or anything, so to find the maximum depth you would have to read the whole document and check every node.