Question

I have following xml which same child element (Filed) and I want to get value from each Child element.

Sameple XML

 <root xmlns="">
    <books cat="F1" ISBN="01F187597" genre="Programming">
      <Field name="Title" val="XML" /> 
      <Field name="Publish Date" val="20010424" /> 
      <Field name="Price" val="43.00" /> 
    </books>
 </root>

Code

  XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Load("c:\\test6.xml");

  var booksData = from book in xdoc.Descendants("root")
                  //I guess create this and do something with it
                  // let fieldElements = book.Descendants("Field")
                  select new Book
                  {
                         cat = book.Element("books").Attribute("cat").Value
                         ,ISBN = book.Element("books").Attribute("ISBN").Value
                         ,genre = book.Element("books").Attribute("genre").Value
                         ,Price = "?"
                         ,PublishDate="?"
                         ,Title="?"
                   };

Book Class

 public class Book
  {
    public string cat {get;set;}
    public string ISBN {get;set;}
    public string genre {get;set;}
    public string Title {get;set;}
    public string PublishDate {get;set;}
    public string Price { get; set; }
  }

Answer 1

I agree with Dennis xdoc.Descendants(“root”) doesn’t really do anything.

I modify code so it will check attrbiute exists or not also how you can use lambda expression.

  var booksData = from book in xdoc.Descendants("books")
                            select new Book
                            {
                                cat = book.Attribute("cat").Value,
                                ISBN = book.Attribute("ISBN").Value,
                                genre = book.Attribute("genre").Value,

                                //Dennis Code 

                               Price = (from childField in book.Elements()
                                         where childField.Attribute("name").Value == "Price"
                                         select childField.Attribute("val").Value).SingleOrDefault(),

                                //same as Dennis code but using lambda expression

                                PublishDate = book.Elements("Field").Where(p => p.Attribute("name").Value == "Publish Date")
                                              .Select(p => p.Attribute("val").Value).SingleOrDefault(),

                                 // Check if element exists or not 
                                 //if not exists it will insert empty string

                               Title = book.Elements("Field").Any( p => p.Attribute("name").Value == "Title")
                                        ? book.Elements("Field").Where(p=> p.Attribute("name").Value == "Title")
                                          .Select(p => p.Attribute("val")== null
                                                  ? string.Empty
                                                  : p.Attribute("val").Value
                                                  ).Single()
                                        : string.Empty                                };