How to get elements by name in XML using LINQ

Question

I\'ve chosen the title here as my problem is I need to get the Item nodes mentioned in the example. I have the following XML and am having problems using LINQ to query it, I

Answer 1

I had a blank Namespace Declaration in my XML I hadn't noticed once I added this into my code it worked - forgot LINQ is very NameSpace oriented!

XNamespace ns = "http://example.org/namespace";
var ids = element.Element(ns + "items") 
                 .Elements("item") 
                 .Select(item => item.Element("id").Value); 

Answer 2

Assuming element is your <a:entry> element:

var ids = element.Element("items")
                 .Elements("item")
                 .Select(item => item.Element("id").Value);

The Element and Elements methods return only direct children, not all descendants, so it doesn't return the <items> element which is under <data>