How to ignore a specific with a LINQ where clause?

Question

I have a client that sends an xml feed which I parse using the following code. This code works.

reviews = from item in xmlDoc.Descendants("node")
                          select new ForewordReview()
                          {
                              PubDate = (string)item.Element("created"),
                              Isbn = (string)item.Element("isbn"),
                              Summary = (string)item.Element("review")
                          };

After getting all my "reviews" I cast the IEnumerable as a List and return it out. Originally, I was having a good and easy time parsing their XML which used to look like this:

<reviews>
    <node>
        <created>01-01-1900</created>
        <ISBN>12345657890123</ISBN>
        <Review>This is a nice and silly book</Review>
    </node>
    <node>
        <created>01-01-2011</created>
        <ISBN>1236245234554</ISBN>
        <Review>This is a stupid book</Review>
    </node>
    <node>
        <created>12-06-1942</created>
        <ISBN>1234543234577</ISBN>
        <Review>This is a old, naughty book</Review>
    </node>
</reviews>

They have, however, changed their schema, to which I don't have access, and now their XML is adding in a final <node> tag to the end which does not contain the decedent elements I am looking for, and so, my parsing breaks on this last tag and I throw an exception. Here is an example:

<reviews>
    <node>
        <created>01-01-1900</created>
        <ISBN>12345657890123</ISBN>
        <Review>This is a nice and silly book</Review>
    </node>
    <node>
        <created>01-01-2011</created>
        <ISBN>1236245234554</ISBN>
        <Review>This is a stupid book</Review>
    </node>
    <node>
        <created>12-06-1942</created>
        <ISBN>1234543234577</ISBN>
        <Review>This is a old, naughty book</Review>
    </node>
    <node>
        <count>4656</count>
    </node>
</reviews>

I need to know if there is a way to ignore this final tag (its always at the end of the document) even though it has the same name as all the other "node" tags I am looking for. I do have a try catch around this block of code but it doesnt return the list of good reviews out if it sees this error.

Thanks guys.

Answer 1

If it's always the last node,

var nodes = xmlDoc.Descendants("node");
reviews = nodes.Take(nodes.Count() - 1).Select(...);

Answer 2

Something like this should do the trick:

var reviews = from item in xmlDoc.Descendants("node").Where(x => x.Element("created") != null)
select new
{
    PubDate = (string)item.Element("created"),
    Isbn = (string)item.Element("isbn"),
    Summary = (string)item.Element("review")
};

You can additional null checks for the other elements if you wish.