Getting all messages from InnerException(s)?

Question

Is there any way to write a LINQ style "short hand" code for walking to all levels of InnerException(s) of Exception thrown? I would prefer to write it in place instead of calling an extension function (as below) or inheriting the Exception class.

static class Extensions {     public static string GetaAllMessages(this Exception exp)     {         string message = string.Empty;         Exception innerException = exp;          do         {             message = message + (string.IsNullOrEmpty(innerException.Message) ? string.Empty : innerException.Message);             innerException = innerException.InnerException;         }         while (innerException != null);          return message;     } };  

Answer 1

Unfortunately LINQ doesn't offer methods that could process hierarchical structures, only collections.

I actually have some extension methods that could help do this. I don't have the exact code in hand but they're something like this:

// all error checking left out for brevity  // a.k.a., linked list style enumerator public static IEnumerable<TSource> FromHierarchy<TSource>(     this TSource source,     Func<TSource, TSource> nextItem,     Func<TSource, bool> canContinue) {     for (var current = source; canContinue(current); current = nextItem(current))     {         yield return current;     } }  public static IEnumerable<TSource> FromHierarchy<TSource>(     this TSource source,     Func<TSource, TSource> nextItem)     where TSource : class {     return FromHierarchy(source, nextItem, s => s != null); } 

Then in this case you could do this to enumerate through the exceptions:

public static string GetaAllMessages(this Exception exception) {     var messages = exception.FromHierarchy(ex => ex.InnerException)         .Select(ex => ex.Message);     return String.Join(Environment.NewLine, messages); }