How to query an XDocument with LINQ when elements have a colon in their name?

Question

I am trying to use LINQ to XML in an with the XDocument object. How do you query the result element in the example below?

Answer 1

serv in your XML is a namespace prefix. It has to be associated with some URI, that identifies the namespace. Look for an attribute like this in your XML:

xmlns:serv="..."

The value inside the quotes will be the namespace. Now, in your C# code, you use that URI to create an XNamespace object:

private static readonly XNamespace serv = "...";

And then you can use that in queries like this:

string value = doc
    .Descendants(serv + "header").First()
    .Descendants(serv + "response").First()
    .Descendants(serv + "result").First()
    .Value;

By the way, you should consider using .Element() rather than .Descendants().First().