Reading values from within an XNode

Question

I have some code that is returning a XNode to me which looks like this:

<File>
  <Component>Main</Component>
  <Path>C:\Main\</Path>
  <FileName>main.txt</FileName>
</File>

I need to have some C# code that will be able to pull out the value of Path for example (C:\Main). I know that if I was using an XML node I could do it like this:

String filePath = xmlNode["Path"].InnerText;

Does anybody know what the equivalent would be for an XNode? Any help is much appreciated!

score 47 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 10 '11 at 09:43

47

Do you have to have it returning an XNode rather than an XElement? With an XElement it's simpler than with an XNode:

string filePath = fileElement.Element("Path").Value;

That will find the first Path element, and will throw a NullReferenceException if there aren't any. An alternative if you're happy to get null if there aren't any would be:

string filePath = (string) fileElement.Element("Path");

If you're really stuck with XNode, you'll either have to cast to XElement or possibly XContainer.

answered Nov 10 '11 at 09:43

Jon Skeet

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Im getting exception when trying to cast to XElement. Do you have a solution for that? Thanks in advance – alperc Feb 10 '16 at 12:58
@ot0: Not without knowing more context, no. I suggest you ask a new question with an example. – Jon Skeet Feb 10 '16 at 12:59
XElement xelm = (XElement) XNodeObject; return exception – alperc Feb 10 '16 at 13:02
1

@ot0: That's not a new question with an example. It's a comment with a single statement which isn't enough context to know what's going on. – Jon Skeet Feb 10 '16 at 13:07
I will post a more specific question in few minutes. – alperc Feb 10 '16 at 13:08
This only works if the XNode is an XElement. It can be a lot of other different things. You can see my answer. – JotaBe Oct 05 '18 at 12:50
@JotaBe: Yes, I make that quite clear in my answer - particularly the last line. – Jon Skeet Oct 05 '18 at 13:31

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 24 '13 at 11:01

11

You can convert your XNode into XElement to access to its properties, my example:

XNode lastNode = myXElement.LastNode;

//if I want to get the 'ID' attribute
string id = (lastNode as XElement).Attribute("ID").Value;

answered Oct 24 '13 at 11:01

Giu

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Isn't downcasting bad? – batbaatar Jun 10 '14 at 20:33
Ahhh, thanks. I now see XElement will work just fine, though. – AndrewRalon Feb 22 '18 at 18:49
1

With the example XML as the XNode isn't he more interested in the Elements under the node not the Attributes? so more like string path = (lastNode as XElement).Element("Path").Value; – Morgeth888 Mar 26 '18 at 19:37

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 29 '16 at 07:28

Casting XNode to XElement works for the individual element to retrieve its value or attributes. But you won't be able to use myXelement.Elements("XXX") to get nested elements. For that you can use xmlNode.Nodes().

This should work:

var nodes = xmlNode.Nodes();//Get all nodes under 'File'
var fileNameNode = nodes.Where(el => ((XElement)el).Name.LocalName == "FileName")
.FirstOrDefault();
string filePath = ((XElement)fileNameNode).Value;

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 23 '14 at 13:01

If you import System.Xml.XPath you can use XPathSelectElement like this on the XNode object:

String component = xmlNode.XPathSelectElement("Component");
String path = xmlNode.XPathSelectElement("Path");
String fileName = xmlNode.XPathSelectElement("FileName");

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 05 '18 at 12:50

It depends on what convcrete objets is the abstract XNode. From XNode Class:

XNode is an abstract common base class for the following types: XComment XContainer: can be XDocument or XElement XDocumentType XProcessingInstruction XText

So you need to check if you can cast it to an XDocument or an XElement, and use their methods, or use LINQ to XML:

For example:

Ahmed Salem · Answer 6 · 2019-09-21T12:20:16.397

0

XNode xnode 
string value = (xnode  as XElement).Value;

we can get the value form XElement object so we need to cast XNode to XElement first

should work

edited Sep 21 '19 at 12:20

answered Sep 18 '19 at 18:08

Ahmed Salem

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While this may solve the problem, its best to include an explanation as well. – Rastalamm Sep 18 '19 at 18:55
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This is a 7+ year old question, with an accepted answer and this provided answer was flagged for review as a Low Quality Post. Here are some guidelines for [How do I write a good answer?](https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-answer). This provided answer may be correct, but it could benefit from an explanation. Code only answers are not considered "good" answers. From [review](https://stackoverflow.com/review). – Trenton McKinney Sep 21 '19 at 07:49

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 10 '11 at 09:44

0

You may use this:

XElement xtr = XElement.Load("path/to/your/xml/file");
String filePath = xtr.Descendants("Path").Single().Value;

answered Nov 10 '11 at 09:44

Abdul Munim

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Reading values from within an XNode

7 Answers7