Is LINQ to XML's XElement ordered?

Question

When I use LINQ to XML, is the order of the elements and attributes written out to text guaranteed to be the same order as how I added the XElement and XAttribute objects? Similarly, when I read in an XML document, is it traversed in the same order as it appears in the XML?

Answer 1

Yes, it is the same order both ways.

Answer 2

Yes, you can use indexing as well, which maps directly to the order they appear in the document.

Answer 3

However, be aware that XML attributes are specified to be unordered; it would be unwise to rely on any particular ordering of attributes in any code. As a practical matter, many API's don't even make it discoverable in which order the attributes were

Sibling elements have order; attributes do not.