Question

I can’t seem to find an article with this same problem.

I have an XML file like this:

<user id="" name="" termsofuse="http://boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi/termsofuse">
<firstname value="" /> 
<lastname value="" /> 
<avatarlink value="N/A" /> 
<yearregistered value="" /> 
<lastlogin value="2012-10-04" /> 
<stateorprovince value="" /> 
<country value="" /> 
<webaddress value="" /> 
<xboxaccount value="" /> 
<wiiaccount value="" /> 
<psnaccount value="" /> 
<battlenetaccount value="" /> 
<steamaccount value="" /> 
<traderating value="363" /> 
</user>

And I am using the following code to extract the data:

static string QueryTheData(XDocument doc)
{
  var data = from item in doc.Descendants("user")
             select new
             {
               avatarlink = item.Element("avatarlink").Value,
               lastlogin = item.Element("lastlogin").Value,
             };
  var t = "";
  foreach (var p in data)
    t += p.ToString();
  return t;
}

But my values returned are null. I’m wondering if it’s because the XML file begins:

<user id="" name="" termsofuse="http://boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi/termsofuse">

Whereas in all the examples I have found the XML begins like this:

<user> ... etc

How can I read these values in this format?

Answer 1

You want to get the value of attribute value. Try this

avatarlink = item.Element("avatarlink").Attribute("value").Value

But I would go this way

var list = doc.Descendants("user")
        .Select(u=>u.Elements().ToDictionary(e=>e.Name.LocalName,e=>e.Attribute("value").Value))
        .ToList();

where every item of the final list contains a dictionary of elements and their values

var lastlogin = list[0]["lastlogin"];