Read XML Attribute using XmlDocument

user_114916 0
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How can I read an XML attribute using C#'s XmlDocument?

I have an XML file which looks somewhat like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<MyConfiguration xmlns="http://tempuri.org/myOwnSchema.xsd" SuperNumber="1" SuperString="whipcream">
    <Other stuff />
</MyConfiguration>

How would I read the XML attributes SuperNumber and SuperString?

Currently I'm using XmlDocument, and I get the values in between using XmlDocument's GetElementsByTagName() and that works really well. I just can't figure out how to get the attributes?

xmldocument xml .net c#
7 Answers
XmlNodeList elemList = doc.GetElementsByTagName(...);
for (int i = 0; i < elemList.Count; i++)
{
    string attrVal = elemList[i].Attributes["SuperString"].Value;
}
user_870530

You should look into XPath. Once you start using it, you'll find its a lot more efficient and easier to code than iterating through lists. It also lets you directly get the things you want.

Then the code would be something similar to 

string attrVal = doc.SelectSingleNode("/MyConfiguration/@SuperNumber").Value;

Note that XPath 3.0 became a W3C Recommendation on April 8, 2014.

user_1099560

You can migrate to XDocument instead of XmlDocument and then use Linq if you prefer that syntax. Something like:

var q = (from myConfig in xDoc.Elements("MyConfiguration")
         select myConfig.Attribute("SuperString").Value)
         .First();
user_706130

XmlDocument.Attributes perhaps? (Which has a method GetNamedItem that will presumably do what you want, although I've always just iterated the attribute collection)

user_1117810
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