ASP.Net 2.0 provides an XmlDataSource control for XML data that accepts the path of XML file and returns the XML document to represent hierarchical data in memory. XmlDataSource reads the XML data inside the provided xml document file and can be bound to different types of Data Controls to display the data such as Repeater Control, GridView Control and DataList control. You can also bind the XML data with TreeView or Menu control of ASP.Net using XmlDataSource. ASP.Net 2.0 provides XML namespace that contains collection of classes with number of methods, functions and properties to perform get or set actions on the XML data.

ASP.Net XmlDataSource Control Properties

Following are the commonly used properties of XmlDataSource Control:

• DataFile: datafile property of XML DataSource accepts the location path to the XML data file that you want to read and display its data items on ASP.Net web page.
  
  
  
• TransformFile: transformfile property accepts the name of the XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) file. XSLT file has .xsl extenstion. It generates the HTML source code for the XML file.
  
  
  
• XPath: XPath property accepts the XPath query expression to read the XML nodes data.
  
  
  
• CacheDuration: CacheDuration property of XMLDataSource accepts the time in seconds to specify the duration to hold the XML data in cache memory by the DataSource control.
  
  
  
• CacheExpirationPolicy: CacheExpirationPolicy accepts the name of caching policy for the XMLDataSource. It accepts 2 types of values:
  
  
  1. Absolute: Absolute value for CacheExpirationPolicy expires the Cached data after the specified CacheDuration property time has passed.
     
     
  2. Sliding: Sliding value for CacheExpirationPolicy expires the Cached Data only when it is not being used for the amount of time specified in the CacheDuration Property.