VB – XML Generator with Visual Basic

So, while I am really working with VBA for the latest months, I have decided to upgrade a little and to take a look what can be done with VB .Net, hoping that some better ideas would come and I would be able to become more and more productive.

So, thus today the idea is the following – generate XML into a file, if possible, make it random. Thus, let’s imagine that we need a XML file with the following

• DateAndTime
• Grade
• Name
• University Education
• City

To make it more interesting, I have decided to make the names random and the city is a number from 1 to 4, each letter meaning something, using enumeration in my code. The result is a file, looking like this:

Yes, names like “RTYUUL” and “STVJF” are not really popular, and due to some reason the Date and Time are quite in the same date and tiem, but still, it is quite good random XML list.

So here comes .Net VB code, that generated this “beauty”:

Imports System.Xml.Serialization
Imports System.Xml
Imports System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary
Imports System.IO

Public Enum BulgarianCities
    Sofia
    Plovdiv
    Varna
    Rousse
End Enum


Public Class GradesAtSchool
    Public DateAndTime As Date
    Public Grade As Double
    Public Name As String
    Public UniversityEducation As Boolean
    Public City As String
End Class

Module Module1
    Public Function generate_name(l_seed As Long) As String
        Dim grandom As New Random(l_seed)

        Dim l_counter As Long
        Dim s_result As String

        Dim l As Long = grandom.Next(3, 10)

        For l_counter = 0 To l
            s_result &= CStr(Chr(grandom.Next(70, 90)))
        Next

        generate_name = s_result

    End Function

    Sub Main()

        Dim values As New List(Of GradesAtSchool)()
        Dim random As New Random()

        For l_counter As Long = 0 To 25
            Dim my_unit As New GradesAtSchool()
            my_unit.DateAndTime = Date.Now
            my_unit.Grade = random.Next(2, 6)
            my_unit.Name = generate_name(l_counter * 10)
            my_unit.UniversityEducation = l_counter Mod 2 = 0

            Select Case l_counter Mod 4
                Case 0
                    my_unit.City = BulgarianCities.Sofia
                Case 1
                    my_unit.City = BulgarianCities.Plovdiv
                Case 2
                    my_unit.City = BulgarianCities.Varna
                Case 3
                    my_unit.City = BulgarianCities.Rousse
            End Select

            values.Add(my_unit)
        Next l_counter

        Dim settings As New XmlWriterSettings()

        settings.Indent = True
        Dim ser As New XmlSerializer(GetType(List(Of GradesAtSchool)))
        Dim writer As XmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create("C:\Users\Gro\Desktop\sample.xml", settings)

        ser.Serialize(writer, values)
        writer.Close()

    End Sub
End Module

Available also in GitHub! Enjoy it! 😀