LINQ to XML - accessing descendants with a prefix

Question

I have a sample xml file like this

Name
address
Zip

        

Answer 1

The prefix "vs" should be mapped to a namespace in the header of the XML document, eg:

<FooDocument xmlns:vs="http://schemas.example.com/vs">

Then you can select those elements with LINQ by using an XNamespace, like this:

XNamespace vs = "http://schemas.example.com/vs";

var names = myXDoc.Root.Descendants(vs + "Name");

The XNamespace and XName types all support implicit conversion from strings.

Answer 2

You need to know what the namespace is. That will have been declared earlier, with something like:

xmlns:vs="http://some_url_here"

You can query using XNamespace:

XNamespace vs = "http://some_url_here";
var names = doc.Descendants(vs + "Name")
               .Select(x => (string) x)
               .ToList();

The + here is actually converting an XNamespace and a string to an XName.

Answer 3

I know this post is really old but wanted to provide some additional information. I was directed to this question and answer while seeking help with a more complex xml file. My xml had several names spaces and had nested namespaces as well. I was able to solve my problem with the suggestions found at this link

It was great help and wanted to post it here in case someone else ran into the same problem