Query an XDocument for elements by name at any depth

Question

I have an XDocument object. I want to query for elements with a particular name at any depth using LINQ.

When I use Descendants("element_name"), I only get elements that are direct children of the current level. I'm looking for the equivalent of "//element_name" in XPath...should I just use XPath, or is there a way to do it using LINQ methods?

Answer 1

Descendants should work absolutely fine. Here's an example:

using System; using System.Xml.Linq;  class Test {     static void Main()     {         string xml = @" <root>   <child id='1'/>   <child id='2'>     <grandchild id='3' />     <grandchild id='4' />   </child> </root>";         XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(xml);          foreach (XElement element in doc.Descendants("grandchild"))         {             Console.WriteLine(element);         }     } } 

Results:

<grandchild id="3" />
<grandchild id="4" />