Question

Using LINQ, How do I only get the author element value for the following XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<quotes>
  <category name="Sport">
    <author>James Small
      <quote>Quote One</quote>
      <quote>Quote Two</quote>
    </author>
  </category>
  <category name="Music">
     <author>
      Stephen Swann
     <quote />
    </author>
  </category>
</quotes>

I’m new to LINQ but I’ve tried

   Dim quotesXMLList As IEnumerable(Of XElement) = From n In q.Descendants("category") _
                                                   Select n
    For Each n In quotesXMLList

        authorList.Add(n.Value)
    Next

but n.value returns the author and all the child element values.

Answer 1

This query returns all the author names:

var authorNames =
    from category in q.Elements("category")
    from author in category.Elements("author")
    from textNode in author.Nodes().OfType<XText>()
    select textNode.Value;