LINQ to XML Integration

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LINQ to XML Integration

.NET Language-Integrated Query for XML (LINQ to XML) allows XML data to be queried by using the standard query operators as well as tree-specific operators that provide XPath-like navigation through descendants, ancestors, and siblings. It provides an efficient in-memory representation for XML that integrates with the existing System.Xmlreader/writer infrastructure and is easier to use than W3C DOM. There are three types that do most of the work of integrating XML with queries: XName, XElement and XAttribute.

XName provides an easy to use way to deal with the namespace-qualified identifiers (QNames) used as both element and attribute names. XName handles the efficient atomization of identifiers transparently and allows either symbols or plain strings to be used wherever a QName is needed.

XML elements and attributes are represented using XElement and XAttribute respectively. XElement and XAttribute support normal construction syntax, allowing developers to write XML expressions using a natural syntax:

XElement xml = new XElement("contacts",

new XElement("contact",

new XAttribute("contactId", "1"),

new XElement("firstName", "Imran"),

new XElement("lastName", "Chughtai") ),

new XElement("contact",

new XAttribute("contactId", "2"),

new XElement("firstName", "Farhan"),

new XElement("lastName", "Chughtai") ) );

Console.WriteLine(xml);



<contacts> 

   <contact contactId="1">  

    <firstName>Imran</firstName> 

     <lastName>Chughtai</lastName> 

   </contact>  

  <contact contactId="2">

      <firstName>Farhan</firstName> 

     <lastName>Chughtai</lastName> 

   </contact> 

 </contacts>