How do I do a deep copy of an element in LINQ to XML?

Question

I want to make a deep copy of a LINQ to XML XElement. The reason I want to do this is there are some nodes in the document that I want to create modified copies of (in the same document). I don't see a method to do this.

I could convert the element to an XML string and then reparse it, but I'm wondering if there's a better way.

Answer 1

There is no need to reparse. One of the constructors of XElement takes another XElement and makes a deep copy of it:

XElement original = new XElement("original"); XElement deepCopy = new XElement(original); 

Here are a couple of unit tests to demonstrate:

[TestMethod] public void XElementShallowCopyShouldOnlyCopyReference() {     XElement original = new XElement("original");     XElement shallowCopy = original;     shallowCopy.Name = "copy";     Assert.AreEqual("copy", original.Name); }  [TestMethod] public void ShouldGetXElementDeepCopyUsingConstructorArgument() {     XElement original = new XElement("original");     XElement deepCopy = new XElement(original);     deepCopy.Name = "copy";     Assert.AreEqual("original", original.Name);     Assert.AreEqual("copy", deepCopy.Name); } 

Answer 2

It looks like the ToString and reparse method is the best way. Here is the code:

XElement copy = XElement.Parse(original.ToString());