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[Related article: Generating
eVB forms from XML documents]
Introduction
There is sparse documentation regarding XML
and Windows CE, and the majority of the information out there
addresses the use of XML with Pocket Internet Explorer. In fact,
the Embedded Developer documentation on MSDN explicitly states
that XML is only supported when used with PIE, which helps to
explain why there are no eVB or eVC XML examples in the documentation.
Even without sample code, using XML from Embedded Visual Basic
is very simple and, in this tutorial, I will outline the steps
necessary to get up and running using the XML document object
model. I'll also step through some code that loads the contents
of an XML file into a Grid control.
Setting Up The Development Environment
Windows CE supports Microsoft XML 2.0
with a few minor differences from the desktop version. The first
step for configuring the eVB environment to use XML is to set
a reference to the desktop version of the msxml 2.0 dll. Although
this is not strictly necessary for creating the XML objects, I
find it useful, because it gives you the ability to navigate the
MSXML object model with the Object Browser and enables IntelliSense
for MSXML properties and methods [footnote: Please note that there
may be inconsistencies between the desktop version of the XML
object model and the actual XML object model found on Windows
CE.]. If you have Microsoft XML 2.0 installed on your development
machine, then you can do this by clicking Project -> References
and then browsing to the location of the msxml.dll file. On my
machine it's C:\winnt\system32\msxml.dll
This will cause and error message to
be displayed stating that the dll is not compatible for the current
platform, but just ignore it and click "OK".
After you do this the first time, "Microsoft
XML, version 2.0" will appear in the list of available references
for all new projects. The next step is to add a reference to the
"Microsoft CE File System Control 3.0". The file control
is necessary to workaround a bug in the load method of the DOMDocument
object.
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