linq to xml access data based on field attribute

Question

I have some xml like this:

  <Data>
      <Rows>
        <Row>
          <Field Name="title">Mr</Field>
          <Field Name="surname">Doe</Field>
        <Row>
      <Rows>
 <Data>

using linq how can I get the value contained in the field element where the attribute is surname

thanks

Answer 1

Actually, you're trying to do an XML-to-Linq thing here. Linq to XML is more meant to create an XML structure from objects through Linq.

Since you have an XML file, you can use something like this:

        XmlDocument xml = new XmlDocument();
        xml.LoadXml(Content);
        string Surname = xml.SelectSingleNode("//Field/[@Name='surname']").Value.ToString();

In other use, to get data from XML, use XPath instead.

Answer 2

Here is how you can express your query using LINQ to XML:

XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse("<Data><Rows><Row><Field Name=\"title\">Mr</Field><Field Name=\"surname\">Doe</Field></Row></Rows></Data>");
string[] matches = (from e in doc.Descendants("Field")
                    where (string)e.Attribute("Name") == "surname"
                    select (string)e).ToArray();