Advice on the best way to structure/format a LINQ to XML query?

Question

I have written a LINQ to XML query that does what I want, but it looks pretty ugly. I am wondering, how would you guys format the following query in a way that doesn't look quite so garish?

Apologies if my example is a bit verbose.

The XML documents I am querying have the following structure:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<newsitem itemid="1" id="root" date="1996-08-20" xml:lang="en">
    <title>A title</title>
    <headline>A headline</headline>
    <dateline>A dateline</dateline>
    <text>
     Some text
    </text>
    <metadata>
     <codes class="">
      <code code="">
       <editdetail attribution=""/>
      </code>
     </codes>
     <dc element="dc.date.created" value=""/>
     <dc element="dc.publisher" value=""/>
     <dc element="dc.date.published" value=""/>
     <dc element="dc.source" value=""/>
     <dc element="dc.creator.location" value=""/>
     <dc element="dc.creator.location.country.name" value=""/>
     <dc element="dc.source" value=""/>
    </metadata>
</newsitem>

And corresponding LINQ query:

XElement dummy = new XElement("dummy");
var query = from article in newsdoc.Elements("newsitem").DefaultIfEmpty(dummy)
            select new
            {
                NewsItemID = (int)article.Attribute("itemid"),
                Date = (DateTime)article.Attribute("date"),
                Title = (string)article.Element("title"),
                Headline = (string)article.Element("headline"),
                ByLine = (string)article.Element("byline"),
                DateLine = (string)article.Element("dateline"),
                NewsText = (string)article.Element("text"),
                Publisher = (string)article.Elements("metadata").Elements("dc").Where(x => (string)x.Attribute("element") == "dc.publisher").Attributes("value").DefaultIfEmpty().ElementAt(0),
                DatePublished = (DateTime)article.Elements("metadata").Elements("dc").Where(x => (string)x.Attribute("element") == "dc.date.published").Attributes("value").DefaultIfEmpty().ElementAt(0),
                Source = (string)article.Elements("metadata").Elements("dc").Where(x => (string)x.Attribute("element") == "dc.source").Attributes("value").DefaultIfEmpty().ElementAt(0),
                CreatorLocation = (string)article.Elements("metadata").Elements("dc").Where(x => (string)x.Attribute("element") == "dc.creator.location").Attributes("value").DefaultIfEmpty().ElementAt(0),
                CreatorLocationCountryName = (string)article.Elements("metadata").Elements("dc").Where(x => (string)x.Attribute("element") == "dc.creator.location.country.name").Attributes("value").DefaultIfEmpty().ElementAt(0),
                Codes = article.Elements("metadata").Elements("codes").Elements("code").Attributes("code").DefaultIfEmpty()
            };

Thanks!

Answer 1

The main "ugly" there is the stuff at the bottom. I would probably add an extension method (or just a utility method) - something like:

    public static XAttribute GetMetadata(this XElement parent, string key)
    {
        return parent.Elements("metadata").Elements("dc")
                 .FirstOrDefault(x => x.Attribute("element").Value == key)
                 .Attribute("value");
    }

then you should be able to use something like:

Publisher = (string)article.GetMetadata("dc.publisher");

(unchecked)