Retrieve full string of XElement with mixed content

Question

Let's say I have the following content in an XElement object

<root>Hello<child>Wold</child></root>

If I use XElement.ToString(), this gives me

"<root xmnls="someschemauri">Hello<child>World</child></root>"

If I use XElement.Value, I will get

"Hello World"

I need to get

"Hello <child>World</child>"

What is the proper function to do this(if there is one)?

Fernald

Which version of .NET are you using? The answers are different for .NET 4.0 and above. – Tita

Answer 1

Solution for .NET 4

var result = String.Join("", rootElement.Nodes()).Trim();

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Complete code (for .NET 3.5):

XElement rootElement = XElement.Parse("<root>Hello<child>Wold</child></root>");
var nodes = rootElement.Nodes().Select(n => n.ToString()).ToArray();
string result = String.Join("", nodes).Trim();
Console.WriteLine(result);
// writes "Hello<child>World</child>"

---

Fast solution without joining all nodes:

XElement rootElement = XElement.Parse("<root>Hello<child>Wold</child></root>");
var reader = rootElement.CreateReader();
reader.MoveToContent();
string result = reader.ReadInnerXml(); 

Wolfhound

@Magnum you are doing something wrong. There should not bee root node itself. Only nodes are joined. – Wolfhound

I got the rootElement is derived from XDocument.Root property., so I simply did String.Join("", xDoc.Root.Nodes()).Trim(); and the aforementioned output is what I got. – Colley

@Colley then your <root> element is not Root of document. Select your <root> element instead – Wolfhound

xElement.Nodes() does not return a string array, I can't use it in the String.Join function. I'm on .NET 3.5 btw – Fernald

@Fernald on .NET 4 String.Join works with IEnumerable. Btw call .ToArray() on .NET 3.5 – Wolfhound

this will do, I tough there was something easier than running a linq query thought. – Fernald

@Fernald I've added nice solution with simple XmlReader which you can create from element. – Wolfhound

That's nice, what's the better solution regarding performance. This will get called quite often. – Fernald

Answer 2

This worked rather nicely:

//SOLUTION BY Nenad
var element = XElement.Parse("<root>Hello<child>World</child></root>");
string xml = string.Join("", element.DescendantNodes().Select(e => e.ToString()));
Debug.WriteLine(xml);

Final output: Hello<child>Wold</child>World

---

Try #3

XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Parse(@"<root>Hello<child>World</child></root>");
XElement rootElement = xDoc.Root;
Debug.WriteLine(rootElement.Value + rootElement.FirstNode.ToString());

Colley

Or maybe .Nodes.ToString()? – Tita

@JohnSaunders I thought about that but his example is very simplistic so the nodes would return child nodes and not necessarily comments or otherwise no? Since I don't know what his eventual xml file will look like, I used Descendants. – Colley

nah that's not it, it Nodes() and Descendant() gives me some weird stuff like System.Xml.Linq.XContainer+d__a System.Xml.Linq.XContainer+d__a instead of a tag and value System.Xml.Linq.XContain – Fernald

But, does Descendants return text? – Tita

No it does not, it returns a collection of XElement obviously. – Fernald

@Fernald Sorry, I'm about to update my answer, working on a full solution in a new solution I created. – Colley

Magnum, your answer would work in this specific example context but currently I dont have access to the XDocument object where I'm in my code. I must come up with something from the XElement – Fernald

Put element.Nodes(), only direct children. "World" was duplicated at the end as it's deeper nested XText node. :) – Curtal

Answer 3

This will do:

var element = XElement.Parse("<root>Hello<child>Wold</child></root>");
string xml = string.Join("", element.Nodes().Select(e => e.ToString()));

For .NET 3.5 (if that was the point of question):

var element = XElement.Parse("<root>Hello<child>Wold</child></root>");
string xml = string.Join("", element.Nodes().Select(e => e.ToString()).ToArray());

Curtal

This returns "Hello<child>Wold</child>Wold", with unnecessary Wold and the end. – Annotate

Fixed - Nodes(), not DescendandNodes(). – Curtal

Same question - how it differs from my answer? – Wolfhound

Your first/main line is little bit akward. Why Trim? And doesn't work in .NET 3.5. You fixed it later too. – Curtal

@Curtal first line was written before OP mentioned about 3.5 (see timeline). That's why code below fixed. Trim is needed for non-single line xml. Otherwise you will get empty lines at start and at end. – Wolfhound

1st - your answer was confusing (way you wrote it), 2nd - that Trim() would fix start and end of the string, but all child nodes would still have their white spaces, so what's the point? – Curtal

Answer 4

Extension method based on fastest know solution:

public static class XElementExtension
{
    public static string InnerXML(this XElement el) {
        var reader = el.CreateReader();
        reader.MoveToContent();
        return reader.ReadInnerXml();
    }
}

Then simple call it: xml.InnerXML();

Neon

Answer 5

I don't have time to test this, but try:

var inners = from n in xelementVariableName.Nodes()
                       select n;
return String.Join(String,Empty, inners);

---

Tested:

public static string ReturnInnerXml()
{
    var doc = XDocument.Parse(@"<root>Hello<child>World</child></root>");
    var root = doc.Root;
    if (root == null)
    {
        throw new InvalidOperationException("No root");
    }

    var inners = from n in root.Nodes()
                 select n;
    return String.Join(String.Empty, inners);
}

This produces:

Hello<child>World</child>

Using .NET 4.0.

Tita

By that I assume you mean this : var inners = from element in xElement.Nodes() select element.ToString();return inners.Aggregate((content, next) => next + " " + content); and sadly it returns the root tag included – Fernald

Answer 6

Here it is:

var element = XElement.Parse("<root>Hello<child>Wold</child></root>");
string xml = string.Join("", element.Nodes().Select(e => e.ToString()).ToArray());

Returns Hello<child>Wold</child> and works on .NET 3.5

Annotate

How it differs from my answer? – Wolfhound