Question

I have code like this:

string result = xml.Root.Descendants("XYZ").Descendants("ABC").Descendants("MNO").Single().Value;

1) Is there a better way to read the value? Some way generic that is not dependent on the nuber of nodes deep that I have to go?

2) What would be the approach to remove the hard-coded dependency on “XYZ”, “ABC” etc. ?

Answer 1

It’s unclear what you really mean, but is this what you’re after?

public IEnumerable<XElement> PathDescendants(
    this XElement element,
    params XName[] names)
{
    return new[] { element }.PathDescendants(names);
}

public IEnumerable<XElement> PathDescendants(
    this IEnumerable<XElement> elements,
    params XName[] names)
{
    return names.Aggregate(elements,
                           (current, name) => current.Descendants(name));
}

Then you can call:

string result = xml.Root.PathDescendants("XYZ", "ABC", "MNO").Single().Value;