How to read xml file using linq

Question

I have this db.xml file

<items> <item> <title>Title1</title> <year>2013</title> <categories> <category>Category1</category> <category>Category2</category> <category>Category3</category> </categories> <count>10</count> </item> (and so on) </items>

I read like that:

var items = from item in xdoc.Descendants("item") select new { Title = item.Element("title").Value, Year = item.Element("year").Value, Categories = item.Element("categories").Value, // I know this is wrong Count = item.Element("count").Value };

The problem is how I can read the categories and add them to list?

foreach (var item in items) { book.Title = item.Title; book.Year = item.Year; foreach (var Category in Categories) { book.Categories.Add(Category); } book.Count = item.Count; books.Add(book); }

You just need to do the same as you did with the first one, just nest it inside, the principle remains the same — Toon Casteele
– Toon Casteele, Commented Mar 21, 2013 at 13:27

Sergey Berezovskiy · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-21 13:41:48Z

It's better to use casting (to string, to int, etc then reading element's value directly. Here is query which returns integer values for Year and Count properties. Categories are IEnumerable<string>:

var items = from item in xdoc.Descendants("item") select new { Title = (string)item.Element("title"), Year = (int)item.Element("year"), Count = (int)item.Element("count"), Categories = from c in item.Element("categories").Elements() select (string)c };

If you want Categories as List<string> then parse categories this way:

 Categories = item.Element("categories") .Elements() .Select(c => (string)c) .ToList()

Alex · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-21 13:50:00Z

4

You can take the list of its elements

EDITED

var items = from item in xdoc.Descendants("item") select new { Title = item.Element("title").Value, Year = item.Element("year").Value, Categories = item.Descendants("categories").Descendants().Select(x=>x.Value).ToList(), Count = item.Element("count").Value };