Question

I load xml by Xdocument:

XDocument document = new XDocument();
                document = XDocument.Load(filepath);
                var list = document.Element("Items").Elements("Item").Select(Items.FromXElement).ToList();

If Xml file did not contain element “Item” or “Items” programm occurs a NullReference Exception.
How i can check my xml file on the content of elements, before this exception?

Answer 1

There are several ways to do this:

Option 1: XPath

using System.Xml.XPath;

var list = document.XPathSelectElements("/Items/Item").Select(Items.FromXElement).ToList();

Option 2: Helper method

static class XExtensions
{
    public static XElement ElementOrEmpty(this XContainer container, XName name)
    {
        return container.Element(name) ?? new XElement(name);
    }
}

var list = document.ElementOrEmpty("Items").Elements("Item").Select(Items.FromXElement).ToList();

Option 3: Validate your XML document against a schema