Linq-to-XML get elements with namespace

Question

i am using linq-to-xml to search elements.

 var doc = XDocument.Load(reader);
                    var ns = doc.Root.Attribute("xmlns").Value;
                    var result = (from u in doc.Descendants(XName.Get("MyElement", ns))

i need to get rid of using XName.Get whenever i try to find an element in xml. how can i set a default namespace to XDocument so that it will not bother when searching.

Regards.

Answer 1

Here is one way of ignoring default namespaces, if you really want to do that:

        XDocument doc;
        using (XmlTextReader xr = new XmlTextReader("input.xml"))
        {
            xr.Namespaces = false;
            doc = XDocument.Load(xr);
        }
        foreach (XElement bar in doc.Descendants("bar"))

But I would suggest to accept the existence and importance of namespaces in XML and use the XName and XNamespace objects LINQ to XML provides to work with them.

Answer 2

i need to get rid of using XName.Get whenever i try to find an element in xml. how can i set a default namespace to XDocument so that it will not bother when searching.

You can't - but there are two other options:

• Use the +(XNamespace, string) operator:

  doc.Descendants(ns + "MyElement")
  

• Just create the XName values once, then refer to them in your query, e.g.

  XName myElementName = ns + "MyElement";
  ...
  doc.Descendants(myElementName);
  

Ideally, you wouldn't create the namespace dynamically anyway - don't you know the namespace you should be looking in? If you do, you can create private static readonly fields with the appropriate XName values.

Answer 3

Can't you do:

doc = XDocument.Load(reader);
var ns = doc.Root.Attribute("xmlns").Value;
var result = from u in doc.Descendants.Elements(ns+"MyElement").Select(c=>c.Value);