String of Horror

[Izisin]

I asked a developer for code to create a specific XML document to save time. Here is what he sent. Needless to say, it didn't save me any time.

Dim XMLFile As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter(strAssetFile, False)

  XMLFile.WriteLine("<Assets>")
  XMLFile.WriteLine("<Encoding>")
  XMLFile.WriteLine("<Profile Specifier=" + """" + "Standard1" + """" + ">")
  XMLFile.WriteLine("</Profile>")
  XMLFile.WriteLine("</Encoding>")

  XMLFile.WriteLine("<Asset FilePath=" + """" + strUpDestinationFile + """" \_
                         + " AssetID=" + """" + Movieid.ToString + """" \_
                           + " CustomerID=" + """" + "1129" + """" \_
                           + " AssetName=" + """" + strFileName.Substring(0, strFileName.LastIndexOf(".")).Replace("\_", " ") + """" \_
                           + " AssetDescription=" + """" + "Upolad" + """" \_
                           + " Category=" + """" + """" \_
                           + " FileNameToUse=" + """" + strFileName.Substring(0, strFileName.LastIndexOf(".")) + """" \_
                           + " Bytes=" + """" + (0).ToString + """" \_
                           + " Activate=" + """" + (1).ToString + """" \_
                           + " />")
  XMLFile.WriteLine("</Assets>")

  XMLFile.Close()

  CreateAssetXML = strAssetFile

[Adam Maras]

While I generally can't stand Visual Basic for much, it does certainly have some neat features for working with XML. You should send your developer a link to this article on MSDN[^].

Adam Maras | Software Developer Microsoft Certified Professional Developer

[Jaime Olivares]

Well, there are many horrors in that code. The longest line can be shortened 50% by using String.Format() Besides this, there is a high risk to produce a bad-formed XML if you have quotes, less-than or greater-than symbols inside your strings. XmlTextWriter is the proper class to do xml serialization.

Best regards, Jaime.

[dojohansen]

What feedback did you provide the developer...?