Question

 <root>
    <level1>
        <item id="1" date="" name="" >
        <item id="2" date="" name="" >
        <item id="3" date="" name="" >
        <item id="4" date="" name="" >
        <item id="5" date="" name="" >
    </level1>
 </root>

I have an xml structure like the one above.

I used

XmlNodeList xnList = xmlDoc.SelectNodes("/level1");

If I used xmlnodelist as above, how can I specifically only get the element with id=”3″?

or more useful if I could store all elements inside as elements in xnlist?

Answer 1

XmlNodeList xnList = xmlDoc.SelectNodes("//level1/item[@id='3']");

and if you want to use Linq To Xml

var xDoc = XDocument.Parse(xmlstring); // XDocument.Load(filename)
var items = xDoc.Descendants("level1")
                .First()
                .Elements("item")
                .Select(item => new { 
                                    ID = item.Attribute("id").Value, 
                                    Name = item.Attribute("name").Value 
                                })
                .ToList();

You can even combine XPath and Linq2Xml

var item2 = xDoc.XPathSelectElements("//level1/item")
                .Select(item => new { 
                                    ID = item.Attribute("id").Value, 
                                    Name = item.Attribute("name").Value 
                                })
                .ToList();