Question

i have tried several methods of trying to extract values from an XML file but none of them seem to work. I am using C#. The XML Is as follows

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<HostedService xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure">
  <Url>hosted-service-url</Url>
  <ServiceName>hosted-service-name</ServiceName>
  <HostedServiceProperties>
    <Description>description</Description>
    <Location>location</Location>
    <AffinityGroup>affinity-group</AffinityGroup>
    <Label>label</Label>
  </HostedServiceProperties>
</HostedService>

I would like to retrieve
hosted-service-url,
hosted-service-name,
description,
location,
affinity-group and
label

What would be the best of way of retrieving these values?

Edit :

Thanks L.B that method works perfectly. However i have just been told i will have to use the larger XML that is below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<HostedService xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure">
  <Url>hosted-service-url</Url>
  <ServiceName>hosted-service-name</ServiceName>
  <HostedServiceProperties>
    <Description>description</Description>
    <Location>location</Location>
    <AffinityGroup>affinity-group</AffinityGroup>
    <Label>base-64-encoded-name-of-the-service</Label>
  </HostedServiceProperties>
  <Deployments>
    <Deployment>
      <Name>deployment-name</Name>
      <DeploymentSlot>deployment-slot</DeploymentSlot>
      <PrivateID>deployment-id</PrivateID>
      <Status>deployment-status</Status>
      <Label>base64-encoded-deployment-label</Label>
      <Url>deployment-url</Url>
      <Configuration>base-64-encoded-configuration-file</Configuration>
      <RoleInstanceList>
        <RoleInstance>
          <RoleName>role-name</RoleName>
          <InstanceName>role-instance-name</InstanceName>
          <InstanceStatus>instance-status</InstanceStatus>
        </RoleInstance>
      </RoleInstanceList>
      <UpgradeDomainCount>upgrade-domain-count</UpgradeDomainCount>
      <RoleList>
        <Role>
          <RoleName>role-name</RoleName>
          <OsVersion>operating-system-version</OsVersion>
        </Role>
      </RoleList>
      <SdkVersion>sdk-version-used-to-create-package</SdkVersion>
      <InputEndpointList>
         <InputEndpoint>
            <RoleName>role-name</RoleName>
            <Vip>virtual-ip-address</Vip>
            <Port>port-number</Port>
         </InputEndpoint>
         …
      </InputEndpointList>
      <Locked>deployment-write-allowed-status</Locked>
      <RollbackAllowed>rollback-operation-allowed</RollbackAllowed>
    </Deployment>
  </Deployments>
</HostedService>

My final question is, there is several repeated tags, such as ,

how can i differentiate between them?

Answer 1

you can use Xml to Linq to parse your xml string. For ex,

var xElem = XElement.Load(new StringReader(xml));
var ns = XNamespace.Get("http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure");
var obj = new
    {
        ServiceName = xElem.Descendants(ns + "ServiceName").First().Value,
        Description = xElem.Descendants(ns + "Description").First().Value,
    };

or you can use XmlSerializer

XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(HostedService), "http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure");
var obj2 = (HostedService)xs.Deserialize(new StringReader(xml));



public class HostedService
{
    public string Url;
    public string ServiceName;
    public HostedServiceProperties HostedServiceProperties;
}

public class HostedServiceProperties
{
    public string Description;
    public string Location;
    public string AffinityGroup;
    public string Label;
}