C# Evolution

I summarized all the key features into a C# Evolution Matrix for your reference as below diagram shows:

Getting a User’s Time from Twitter API in C#

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<statuses type="array">

  <status>

    <created_at>Tue Apr 09 10:08:15 +0000 2013</created_at>

    <id>1016846548</id>

    <text>Hi &quot;everybody&quot; #greetings</text>

    <source>web</source>

    <truncated>true</truncated>

    <in_reply_to_status_id></in_reply_to_status_id>

    <in_reply_to_user_id></in_reply_to_user_id>

    <favorited>false</favorited>

    <user>

      <id>2566935</id>

      <name>Abc Xyz</name>

      <screen_name>Abc</screen_name>

      <location></location>

      <description></description>

      <profile_image_url>http://.../normal.jpg</profile_image_url>

      <url>https://www.blogger.com/blogger</url>

      <protected>false</protected>

      <followers_count>42</followers_count>

    </user>

  </status>

  <status>

    ...

  </status>

</statuses>

Extracting the Data

XDocument document = XDocument.Parse(response, LoadOptions.None);

var query = from e in document.Root.Descendants("status")

            select new UserStatus
            {
                UserName = e.Element("user").Element("name").Value,
                ProfileImage = e.Element("user").Element("profile_image_url").Value,
                Status = HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(e.Element("text").Value),
                StatusDate = (e.Element("created_at").Value.ParseDateTime())
            };

Few things to note about the above code:

1. HttpUtility.HtmlDecode is being used in order to get a readable text. The response contained text like “Testing "posts" #devacademy3” and this method (in System.Web) converts it to “Testing “posts” #devacademy3”.

2. The ParseDateTime() method on the element’s value is an extension method I created in order to parse a DateTime from the special string representation of the time the status was posted: Sat Nov 15 10:08:15 +0000 2008 This method looks like:

public static class StringExtensions
{
    public static DateTime ParseDateTime(this string date)
    {
        string dayOfWeek = date.Substring(0, 3).Trim();
        string month = date.Substring(4, 3).Trim();
        string dayInMonth = date.Substring(8, 2).Trim();
        string time = date.Substring(11, 9).Trim();
        string offset = date.Substring(20, 5).Trim();
        string year = date.Substring(25, 5).Trim();
        string dateTime = string.Format("{0}-{1}-{2} {3}", dayInMonth, month, year, time);
        DateTime ret = DateTime.Parse(dateTime);
        return ret;
    }
}

How to get a part of HTML in C#

Give the HTMLAgilityPack a look into.
Its a lovely HTML parser. http://htmlagilitypack.codeplex.com/