How to get the inner text from an xml document using XDocument and extension methods

Question

I am trying to get the "NAME" and "EMAIL" texts from the following html file:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <title></title>
</head>
<body>
    <ol>
        <li>
            <font class="normal">
                <b>NAME</b> <a href="/member/mail_compose.aspx?id=name"><img src="/images/mailbox.gif" border="0" alt="Send Mail" /></a> <a href="/photos/member_viewphoto.aspx?id=name"><img src="/images/icons/member_photos.gif" border="0" alt="View  Photos" /></a> <br />
                ADDRESS<br />
                PHONE<br />
                <a href="mailto:email@hotmail.com" class="redlink">EMAIL</a><br />
                <br />
            </font>
        </li>
</body>
</html>

Here is the code that I am using:

// Load the xml document
XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Load(@"..\..\Directory.html");

// Parse document
var names = xDoc.Root.DescendantsAndSelf()
        .Where(x => x.Name.LocalName == "ol").DescendantsAndSelf()
        .Where(x => x.Name.LocalName == "li").DescendantsAndSelf()
        .Select(x => new
                        {
                            name = x.Elements().Where(y => y.Name.LocalName == "b").Select(y => y.Value),
                            email = x.DescendantsAndSelf().Where(y => y.Name.LocalName == "a" && x.FirstAttribute.Name == "href" && x.Attribute("href").Value.Contains("mailto")).Select(y => y.Value ?? "No Email")
                        }
        );

// Print text to console
for (int i = 0; i < names.Count(); i++)
{
    Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", names.ElementAt(i).name, names.ElementAt(i).email);
}

Somehow, the above code is printing this:

System.Linq.Enumerable+WhereSelectEnumerableIterator2[System.Xml.Linq.XElement, System.String]: System.Linq.Enumerable+WhereSelectEnumerableIterator2[System.Xm l.Linq.XElement,System.String]

Could someone please tell me why this is happening? Also, if there is a better way of doing this, suggestions would be very welcome.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 06 '14 at 21:22

Without checks for null (note most of the places I use FirstorDefault can potentially thrrow NullExceptions since I do not check for null in the solution.

var htmlToProcess = 
@"<!DOCTYPE html>
                                <html lang='en' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
                                <head>
                                    <meta charset='utf-8' />
                                    <title></title>
                                </head>
                                <body>
                                    <ol>
                                        <li>
                                            <font class='normal'>
                                                <b>NAME</b> <a href='/member/mail_compose.aspx?id=name'><img src='/images/mailbox.gif' border='0' alt='Send Mail' /></a> <a href='/photos/member_viewphoto.aspx?id=name'><img src='/images/icons/member_photos.gif' border='0' alt='View  Photos' /></a> <br />
                                                ADDRESS<br />
                                                PHONE<br />
                                                <a href='mailto:email@hotmail.com' class='redlink'>EMAIL</a><br />
                                                <br />
                                            </font>
                                        </li>
                                    </ol>
                                </body>
                                </html>";
        var body = dataSet1Tree.Nodes()
                               .OfType<XElement>()
                               .FirstOrDefault(x=> x.Name.LocalName.ToLower() =="body");

        if (body != null)
        {
            var oi = body.Descendants()
                         .FirstOrDefault(x => x.Name.LocalName.ToLower() == "ol");
            if (oi != null)
            {
                var lis = oi.Elements()
                            .Where(x=> x.Name.LocalName.ToLower()=="li");
                var listContainingInfo =from font in lis.Select(li => body.Descendants()
                                                                          .FirstOrDefault(x => x.Name.LocalName.ToLower() == "font"))
                                                        .Where(font => font != null) 
                                        select font.Nodes().OfType<XElement>();

                var listOfUsers = listContainingInfo.Select(nodes => new
                {
                    Name = nodes.FirstOrDefault(innerNode => innerNode.Name.LocalName.ToLower() == "b").Value,
                    Email = nodes.FirstOrDefault(innerNode => innerNode.Value == "EMAIL")
                                 .Attributes("href")
                                 .FirstOrDefault()
                                 .Value
                });

                foreach (var user in listOfUsers)
                    Console.WriteLine(user.Name +" "+ user.Email);


            }
        }

This answer also works, but I am marking the other correct answer as Answer because it was posted first. Thank you for your answer. — Tom, Nov 10 '14 at 16:33

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 06 '14 at 20:28

To answer your first question (which is probably more important to you than the code I have to get it working for that sample HTML), you have .Select for your name and email fields. That's why you're returning a collection when you loop over names. If that is actually what you want, then do a SelectMany instead of a Select when you create your anonymous object.

Without a schema, I don't know how to better your XML traversing before the ".Select"

Another issue is that for the href attribute, you need to compare to FirstAttribute.Name.LocalName instead of just the FirstAttribute.Name

var names = xDoc.Root.DescendantsAndSelf()
                .Where(x => x.Name.LocalName == "ol").DescendantsAndSelf()
                .Where(x => x.Name.LocalName == "li").DescendantsAndSelf()
                .Where(x => x.Name.LocalName == "font")
                .Select(x => new
                {
                    name = x.Descendants().Where(y => y.Name.LocalName == "b").Select(y => y.Value).Single(),
                    email = x.Descendants().Where(y => y.Name.LocalName == "a" && y.FirstAttribute.Name.LocalName == "href" && y.Attribute("href").Value.Contains("mailto")).Select(y => y.Value).Single()
                });

Some notes:

y.Value ?? "No Email"

needs to be redone because the y.Value will never be null
also you were missing an ol tag in your html :)

How to get the inner text from an xml document using XDocument and extension methods

2 Answers2