How can I get an XElement's innertext in Linq to XML?

Question

I'm trying to extract the polygons from placemarks in a KML file. So far so good:

Imports <xmlns:g='http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0'&gt;
Imports System.Xml.Linq

Partial Class Test_ImportPolygons
    Inherits System.Web.UI.Page

    Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
        Dim Kml As XDocument = XDocument.Load(Server.MapPath("../kmlimport/ga.kml"))
        For Each Placemark As XElement In Kml.<g:Document>.<g:Folder>.<g:Placemark>
            Dim Name As String = Placemark.<g:name>.Value
            ...
        Next
    End Sub

End Class

I'd like to capture the entire <polygon>...</polygon> block as a string. I tried something like this (where the ... is above):

        Dim Polygon as String = Placemark.<g:Polygon>.InnerText

but the XElement object doesn't have an InnerText property, or any equivalent as far as I can tell. How do I grab the raw XML that defines an XElement?

Answer 1

Wouldn't this work?

Placemark.ToString()

Answer 2

What I was missing was that Placemark.<g:Polygon> is a collection of XElements, not a single XElement. This works:

    For Each Placemark As XElement In Kml.<g:Document>.<g:Folder>.<g:Placemark>
        Dim Name As String = Placemark.<g:name>.Value
        Dim PolygonsXml As String = ""
        For Each Polygon As XElement In Placemark.<g:Polygon>
            PolygonsXml &= Polygon.ToString
        Next
    Next

XElement.ToString is the equivalent of InnerText, as tbrownell suggested.

Answer 3

I missed the Enumeration also. When using .Value it is possible to receive a null exception. Try the equivelent of this instead:

(string)Placemark.<g:name>

Sorry not sure of the VB syntax,,,it has been a while since I have coded in VB.