LINQ to XML getting XElement values

I am having an issue with getting some values back from LINQ to XML query. I have got the XML from a SOAP web service and passed this through and parsed this into an XDocument to query

The XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<soap:Body>
<GetCollectionByUprnAndDateResponse xmlns=\"http://webservices.whitespacews.com/\">
  <GetCollectionByUprnAndDateResult>
    <ErrorCode>0</ErrorCode>
    <ErrorDescription>Success</ErrorDescription>
    <SuccessFlag>true</SuccessFlag>
    <Collections>
      <Collection>
        <Service>Garden Waste Collection Service</Service>
        <Round>RR3 GDN</Round>
        <Schedule>TueFort2</Schedule>
        <Day>Tuesday</Day>
        <Date>01/04/2014</Date>
      </Collection>
      <Collection>
        <Service>Recycling Collection Service</Service>
        <Round>RR8 REC</Round>
        <Schedule>TueFort2</Schedule>
        <Day>Tuesday</Day>
        <Date>01/04/2014</Date>
      </Collection>
      <Collection>
        <Service>Refuse Collection Service</Service>
        <Round>RR8 REF</Round>
        <Schedule>TueFort1</Schedule>
        <Day>Tuesday</Day>
        <Date>08/04/2014</Date>
      </Collection>
      <Collection>
        <Service>Garden Waste Collection Service</Service>
        <Round>RR3 GDN</Round>
        <Schedule>TueFort2</Schedule>
        <Day>Tuesday</Day>
        <Date>15/04/2014</Date>
      </Collection>
      <Collection>
        <Service>Recycling Collection Service</Service>
        <Round>RR8 REC</Round>
        <Schedule>TueFort2</Schedule>
        <Day>Tuesday</Day>
        <Date>15/04/2014</Date>
      </Collection>
      <Collection>
        <Service>Refuse Collection Service</Service>
        <Round>RR8 REF</Round>
        <Schedule>TueFort1</Schedule>
        <Day>Tuesday</Day>
        <Date>22/04/2014</Date>
      </Collection>
    </Collections>
  </GetCollectionByUprnAndDateResult>
</GetCollectionByUprnAndDateResponse>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

The CS Code:

using (var reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()))
{
   string xmlString = reader.ReadToEnd();
   XDocument xmlDoc = XDocument.Parse(xmlString);
   var collections = (from p in xmlDoc.Descendants()
       where p.Name.LocalName == "Collection"
       select p);

   var test = xmlDoc.Descendants("Collection").Select(
       x => new
       {
           day = x.Element("Day").Value,
           date = x.Element("Date").Value
       });
       Debug.WriteLine("STOP HERE");

   var test2 = (from p in xmlDoc.Descendants()
       where p.Name.LocalName == "Collection"
       select new{
          day = p.Element("Day").Value,
          date = p.Element("Date").Value
       });

}

The collections var above gives me a list of the nodes, however the test and test2 var's does not get get me the child elements.

any help appreciated!

Jon Skeet
people
quotationmark

This is what's causing you the headache:

xmlns="http://webservices.whitespacews.com/"

That's setting the default namespace for the element and its descendants - so you need to look for elements with a local name of Collections and that namespace. Ditto the other elements. Fortunately, LINQ to XML makes that easy for you:

XNamespace ns = "http://webservices.whitespacews.com/";
...
var test = xmlDoc.Descendants(ns + "Collection")
                 .Select(x => new
                 {
                     day = x.Element(ns + "Day").Value,
                     date = x.Element(ns + "Date").Value
                 });

I suspect your test2 collection would have elements, but because it won't be able to find the Day and Date elements, so fetching the Value property will result in a NullReferenceException.

Also note that there's no need for you to create your own reader etc. I would write your code as:

XNamespace ns = "http://webservices.whitespacews.com/";
XDocument doc;
using (var stream = response.GetResponseStream())
{
    doc = XDocument.Load(stream);
}
var query = xmlDoc.Descendants(ns + "Collection")
                  .Select(x => new
                  {
                      Day = x.Element(ns + "Day").Value,
                      Date = x.Element(ns + "Date").Value
                  });

people

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