Question

I have written a LINQ to XML query that does what I want, but it looks pretty ugly. I am wondering, how would you guys format the following query in a way that doesn’t look quite so garish?

Apologies if my example is a bit verbose.

The XML documents I am querying have the following structure:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='iso-8859-1'?> <newsitem itemid='1' id='root' date='1996-08-20' xml:lang='en'>     <title>A title</title>     <headline>A headline</headline>     <dateline>A dateline</dateline>     <text>         Some text     </text>     <metadata>         <codes class=''>             <code code=''>                 <editdetail attribution=''/>             </code>         </codes>         <dc element='dc.date.created' value=''/>         <dc element='dc.publisher' value=''/>         <dc element='dc.date.published' value=''/>         <dc element='dc.source' value=''/>         <dc element='dc.creator.location' value=''/>         <dc element='dc.creator.location.country.name' value=''/>         <dc element='dc.source' value=''/>     </metadata> </newsitem> 

And corresponding LINQ query:

XElement dummy = new XElement('dummy'); var query = from article in newsdoc.Elements('newsitem').DefaultIfEmpty(dummy)             select new             {                 NewsItemID = (int)article.Attribute('itemid'),                 Date = (DateTime)article.Attribute('date'),                 Title = (string)article.Element('title'),                 Headline = (string)article.Element('headline'),                 ByLine = (string)article.Element('byline'),                 DateLine = (string)article.Element('dateline'),                 NewsText = (string)article.Element('text'),                 Publisher = (string)article.Elements('metadata').Elements('dc').Where(x => (string)x.Attribute('element') == 'dc.publisher').Attributes('value').DefaultIfEmpty().ElementAt(0),                 DatePublished = (DateTime)article.Elements('metadata').Elements('dc').Where(x => (string)x.Attribute('element') == 'dc.date.published').Attributes('value').DefaultIfEmpty().ElementAt(0),                 Source = (string)article.Elements('metadata').Elements('dc').Where(x => (string)x.Attribute('element') == 'dc.source').Attributes('value').DefaultIfEmpty().ElementAt(0),                 CreatorLocation = (string)article.Elements('metadata').Elements('dc').Where(x => (string)x.Attribute('element') == 'dc.creator.location').Attributes('value').DefaultIfEmpty().ElementAt(0),                 CreatorLocationCountryName = (string)article.Elements('metadata').Elements('dc').Where(x => (string)x.Attribute('element') == 'dc.creator.location.country.name').Attributes('value').DefaultIfEmpty().ElementAt(0),                 Codes = article.Elements('metadata').Elements('codes').Elements('code').Attributes('code').DefaultIfEmpty()             };  

Thanks!

Answer 1

The main ‘ugly’ there is the stuff at the bottom. I would probably add an extension method (or just a utility method) – something like:

    public static XAttribute GetMetadata(this XElement parent, string key)     {         return parent.Elements('metadata').Elements('dc')                  .FirstOrDefault(x => x.Attribute('element').Value == key)                  .Attribute('value');     } 

then you should be able to use something like:

Publisher = (string)article.GetMetadata('dc.publisher'); 

(unchecked)