C# XmlDocument SelectNodes is not working

Question

I want to get the value from XML file but I failed. Can you please help me point out the problem ?? Because I already tried very hard to test and googling but I still can\'t

Answer 1

The issue is that SelectNodes method takes a XPath expression that is case sensitive.

XmlDocument xmldoc = new XmlDocument();
            xmldoc.Load("TheXMLFile.xml");

            Console.WriteLine($"Contact: {xmldoc.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("Contact").Count}"); // return 2
            Console.WriteLine($"/Contact: {xmldoc.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("/Contact").Count}"); // return 0, and it is the expected!
            Console.WriteLine($"//Contact: {xmldoc.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("//Contact").Count}"); // return 2

            foreach (XmlNode firstName in xmldoc.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("//Profiles/Personal/FirstName"))
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"firstName {firstName.InnerText}");
            }

In the code above you can see 2 first names, "My First Name" and "Person". I just change the first char to upper case "contact" -> "Contact".