Get content of XML node using c#

Question

simple question but I've been dinking around with it for an hour and it's really starting to frustrate me. I have XML that looks like this:

  <TimelineInfo>
    <PreTrialEd>Not Started</PreTrialEd>
    <Ambassador>Problem</Ambassador>
    <PsychEval>Completed</PsychEval>
  </TimelineInfo>

And all I want to do is use C# to get the string stored between <Ambassador> and </Ambassador>.

So far I have:

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("C:\\test.xml");
XmlNode x = doc.SelectSingleNode("/TimelineInfo/Ambassador");

which selects the note just fine, now how in the world do I get the content in there?

dtb · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-03 16:12:58Z

17

May I suggest having a look at LINQ-to-XML (System.Xml.Linq)?

var doc = XDocument.Load("C:\\test.xml");

string result = (string)doc.Root.Element("Ambassador");

LINQ-to-XML is much more friendly than the Xml* classes (System.Xml).

Otherwise you should be able to get the value of the element by retrieving the InnerText property.

string result = x.InnerText;

edited Jun 3, 2010 at 16:12

answered Jun 3, 2010 at 15:25

dtb

218k37 gold badges413 silver badges438 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

3 Comments

James Manning Over a year ago

You shouldn't need to cast to XmlElement - InnerText is defined in the parent XmlNode as virtual and XmlElement just overrides it like normal.

James Manning Over a year ago

BTW, in case others run across this - the cast to string is important (XElement defines lots of explicit conversions so you can do stuff like this and not have to call Convert methods yourself) - you might be tempted to ToString instead, but that doesn't get you the same result (it would get the entire element, including opening, closing, and content)

James Manning Over a year ago

BTW, since in this example snippet we're not really using the XDocument, a slightly simpler version would be XElement.Load the file which gets you the root element directly. However, that's just a point of trivia - XDocument.Load is certainly what you want to use in the typical case. :)

James Manning · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-03 18:46:48Z

The InnerText property should work fine for you.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.xmlnode.innertext.aspx

FWIW, you might consider switching API to linq-to-xml (XElement and friends) as IMHO it's a friendly, easier API to interact with.

System.Xml version (NOTE: no casting to XmlElement needed)

var xml = @"<TimelineInfo>
                <PreTrialEd>Not Started</PreTrialEd>
                <Ambassador>Problem</Ambassador>
                <PsychEval>Completed</PsychEval>
            </TimelineInfo>";
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml(xml);
var node = doc.SelectSingleNode("/TimelineInfo/Ambassador");
Console.WriteLine(node.InnerText);

linq-to-xml version:

var xml = @"<TimelineInfo>
                <PreTrialEd>Not Started</PreTrialEd>
                <Ambassador>Problem</Ambassador>
                <PsychEval>Completed</PsychEval>
            </TimelineInfo>";
var root = XElement.Parse(xml);
string ambassador = (string)root.Element("Ambassador");
Console.WriteLine(ambassador);

Julius A · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-03 15:27:15Z

3

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("C:\\test.xml");
XmlNode x = doc.SelectSingleNode("/TimelineInfo/Ambassador");

x.InnerText will return the contents

answered Jun 3, 2010 at 15:27

Julius A

40k27 gold badges79 silver badges98 bronze badges

1 Comment

Jay Over a year ago

Simple and efficient. Kudos

czuroski · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-03 15:28:09Z

0

Try using Linq to XML - it provides a very easy way to query xml datasources - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb387098%28v=VS.100%29.aspx

answered Jun 3, 2010 at 15:28

czuroski

4,35210 gold badges53 silver badges87 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Get content of XML node using c#

4 Answers 4

3 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

3 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related