Path of Current Node in XDocument

Question

Is it possible to get the path of the current XElement in an XDocument? For example, if I'm iterating over the nodes in a document is there some way I can get the path of that node (XElement) so that it returns something like \root\item\child\currentnode ?

Answer 1

There's nothing built in, but you could write your own extension method:

public static string GetPath(this XElement node)
{
    string path = node.Name.ToString();
    XElement currentNode = node;
    while (currentNode.Parent != null)
    {
        currentNode = currentNode.Parent;
        path = currentNode.Name.ToString() + @"\" + path;
    }
    return path;
}


XElement node = ..
string path = node.GetPath();

This doesn't account for the position of the element within its peer group though.

Answer 2

I know the question is old, but in case someone wants to get a simple one liner:

XElement element = GetXElement();
var xpath = string.Join ("/", element.AncestorsAndSelf().Reverse().Select(a => a.Name.LocalName).ToArray());

Usings:

using System.Linq;
using System.Xml.Linq;