Question

Let’s say I have the following XML file below. My question is, how to I account for a different number of name elements (child of environment element) when querying using LINQ. I can read the file and even query when there are the same number of name elements (for example, they all have 3). My goal is to populate an object that has a list caled environment with the names in the XML file. Any help would be appreciated.

     <database type="prod">
    <name>DB1</name>
    <server>
        <name>prodserver.net</name>
    </server>
    <connection>
        <name>u1</name>
        <password>b1</password>
    </connection>
    <environment>
        <name>test1</name>
        <name>test2</name>
        <name>test3</name>
    </environment>
</database>
      <database type="dev">
    <name>DB2</name>
    <server>
        <name>devserver.net</name>
    </server>
    <connection>
        <name>u11</name>
        <password>b11</password>
    </connection>
    <environment>
        <name>test1</name>
        <name>test2</name>
        <name>test3</name>
                          <name>test4</name>
                          <name>test5</name>
    </environment>
</database>

Or maybe to make it even easier, let’s say I have the following

  <student name="A" class="1">
<classes>
  Math
</classes>
</student>  
<student name="B" class="2">
  <classes>
   Programming
  </classes>
</student>

And I run the following code:

var students = doc.Root
                          .Elements("student")
                          .Select(x => new Student
                          {
                              Name = (string)x.Attribute("name"),
                              Class = (string)x.Attribute("class"),
                              Type = (string)x.Elements("classes").Single().Value
                          })
                          .ToList();

It works fine, but when I add one more classes element, it breaks:

  <student name="A" class="1">
<classes>
  Math
</classes>
<classes>
  Java
</classes>
</student>  
<student name="B" class="2">
  <classes>
    Programming
  </classes>
</student>

Answer 1

It’s not really clear what you mean… assuming you have (say) an Environment type with a constructor accepting a List<string> as the names, you’d use:

// If element is the <environment> element
Environment = new Environment(element.Elements("name")
                                     .Select(x => x.Value)
                                     .ToList());