Xml file reading using XML to LINQ in C#

Question

I've an xml file (Sample.xml) which has the following structure

<RootElement> 
 <Children> 
    <Child Name="FirstChild" Start="0" End="2"> 
      <Sibling Name="Test1" /> 
      <Sibling Name="Test2" /> 
      <AdditionalSibling Name="Add_Test_1" /> 
      <AdditionalSibling Name="Add_Test_2" /> 
      <MissingSibling Name="Miss_Test_1" /> 
      <MissingSibling Name="Miss_Test_2" / 
 </Child> 

 <Child Name="SecondChild" Start="0" End="2"> 
      <Sibling Name="Test3" /> 
      <Sibling Name="Test4" /> 
 </Child> 
 <Child Name="ThirdChild" Start="0" End="2"> 
      <Sibling Name="Test5" /> 
      <Sibling Name="Test6" /> 
  </Child> 
  <Child Name="FourthChild" Start="0" End="2"> 
      <Sibling Name="Test7" /> 
      <Sibling Name="Test8" /> 
  </Child> 
  <Child Name="FifthChild" Start="0" End="2"> 
      <Sibling Name="Test9" /> 
      <Sibling Name="Test10" /> 
  </Child> 
  <Child Name="SixthChild" Start="0" End="2"> 
      <Sibling Name="Test11" /> 
      <Sibling Name="Test12" /> 
  </Child> 

  <MatchedChilds> 
     <Child Name="FirstChild" /> 
     <Child Name="SecondChild" /> 
     <Child Name="ThirdChild" /> 
     <Child Name="FourthChild" /> 
     <Child Name="FifthChild" /> 
     <Child Name="SixthChild" />  
  </MatchedChilds> 
 </Children> 
</RootElement> 

i need to read the attribute values of the element" Child" which is directly under "RootElement"

Now i'm using the LINQ query like

          List<string> lst = (from element in XDocument.Load(Application.StartupPath + "\\Sample.xml")
                                                       .Descendants("Child")
                                                        group element by element.Attribute("Name").Value into KeyGroup select KeyGroup.Key )
                                                       .ToList();

but it returns the attribute value of "Name" of all the "Child" element in the file.

Please give me a better solution to do this using XML to LINQ

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Use something like this:

XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(Application.StartupPath + "\\Sample.xml");
List<string> lst = doc.Root.Elements("Child")
                      .Select(x => (string) x.Attribute("Name"))
                      .ToList();

Note the use of Elements() instead of Descendants() . That will get you all the name attributes. It's unclear to me why you were grouping in your original sample code, but hopefully this will get you going.

Answer 2

You grouped by name, so your list would have name elements. You may query and iterate your results as follows:

var query = from element in XDocument.Load(Application.StartupPath + "\\Sample.xml")
    .Descendants("Child")
    group element by element.Attribute("Name").Value into KeyGroup 
    select new { Grouping = KeyGroup.Key, Children = KeyGroup };

and the iteration

foreach(var namekey in query)
{
    Console.WriteLine(namekey.Grouping);
    foreach(var child in namekey.Children)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(child.whatever);
    }
}