Question

I am using this code to retrieve the values I want from XML:

IEnumerable<ForewordReview> reviews = null;
try
{
    reviews = from item in xmlDoc.Descendants("node")
              select new ForewordReview()
              {
                  PubDate = item.Element("created").ToString(),
                  Isbn = item.Element("isbn").ToString(),
                  Summary = item.Element("review").ToString()
              };
} // ...

Incidentally, a client is now passing us almost every tag with CDATA which I need to extract:

<review>
    <node>
        <created>
            <![CDATA[2012-01-23 12:40:57]]>
        </created>
        <isbn>
            <![CDATA[123456789]]>
        </isbn>
        <summary>
            <![CDATA[Teh Kittehs like to play in teh mud]]>
        </summary>
    </node>
</review>

I have seen a couple of solutions for extracting these values from within the CDATA tag, one of which is to use a where clause on the LINQ statement:

where element.NodeType == System.Xml.XmlNodeType.CDATA

I sort of see whats going on here, but I am not sure this works with how I am using Linq (specifically, building an object from selected items.

Do I need to apply this filter on the items in the select statement individually? Otherwise, I dont really understand how this will work with the code I am using.

As always, I appreciate the help.

Answer 1

Cast each XElement to a string instead:

reviews = from item in xmlDoc.Descendants("node")
          select new 
          {
              PubDate = (string)item.Element("created"),
              Isbn = (string)item.Element("isbn"),
              Summary = (string)item.Element("summary")
          };
// Output:
// {
//      PubDate = 2012-01-23 12:40:57,
//      Isbn = 123456789,
//      Summary = Teh Kittehs like to play in teh mud
// }

This also works with other data types, such as int, float, DateTime, etc:

reviews = from item in xmlDoc.Descendants("node")
          select new 
          {
              PubDate = (DateTime)item.Element("created")
          };
// Output:
// {
//      PubDate = 1/23/2012 12:40:57
// }

It also works with XAttributes as well.