XElement Sequence contains no elements why?

Question

Here is the XML I am querying:

<GeocodeResponse>
  <status>OK</status>
  <result>
    <type>street_address</type>
    <formatted_address>264 Mugga Ln, Canberra ACT, Australia</formatted_address>
    <address_component>
      <long_name>264</long_name>
      <short_name>264</short_name>
      <type>street_number</type>
    </address_component>
    <address_component>
      <long_name>Mugga Lane</long_name>
      <short_name>Mugga Ln</short_name>
      <type>route</type>
    </address_component>
    <address_component>
      <long_name>Canberra</long_name>
      <short_name>Canberra</short_name>
      <type>colloquial_area</type>
      <type>locality</type>
      <type>political</type>
    </address_component>
    <address_component>
      <long_name>Australian Capital Territory</long_name>
      <short_name>ACT</short_name>
      <type>administrative_area_level_1</type>
      <type>political</type>
    </address_component>
  </result>
</GeocodeResponse>

And here is my C# code:

XElement localityname = xml.Element("result").Elements("address_component")
                           .Where(a => a.Element("type").Value == "locality")
                           .First().Element("long_name");

In most cases, the same/similar XML works fine and I get a value from my query.

What I'm looking for (and works most of the time) is the word "Canberra".

But why does this XML crash with "Sequence contains no elements"???

Answer 1

You have multiple type nodes in the xml, so you have to do like this using XDocument :

XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Parse(XML);

    var element = xdoc.Descendants("result").Descendants("address_component")
                      .Where(x=>x.Descendants("type").Any(y=> y.Value == "locality"))
                      .First().Element("long_name");

I have made a working Fiddle example

But if the element may exist or may not in the xml, then consider using FirstOrDefault() , as it will not throw exception if no element is found matching the criteria of predicate:

var element = xdoc.Descendants("result").Descendants("address_component")
                          .Where(x=>x.Descendants("type").Any(y=> y.Value == "locality"))
                          .FirstOrDefault();

 if(element !=null)
 {
   var val = element.Element("long_name").Value;
 }

Answer 2

If xml is your XDocument , then you are ignoring the GeocodeResponse element.

This query would probably be more forgiving (returning null if the element you're looking for isn't present):

var name = (string)doc.Descendants("address_component")
    .Where(e => (string)e.Element("type") == "locality")
    .Select(e => e.Element("long_name"))
    .SingleOrDefault();