Question

I’m looking for the simplest way to convert a string containing valid XML into an XmlElement object in C#.

How can you turn this into an XmlElement?

<item><name>wrench</name></item>

Answer 1

Use this:

private static XmlElement GetElement(string xml)
{
    XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
    doc.LoadXml(xml);
    return doc.DocumentElement;
}

Beware!!
If you need to add this element to another document first you need to Import it using ImportNode.