Converting a XML to Generic List

I am trying to convert XML to List

<School> <Student> <Id>2</Id> <Name>dummy</Name> <Section>12</Section> </Student> <Student> <Id>3</Id> <Name>dummy</Name> <Section>11</Section> </Student> </School> 

I tried few things using LINQ and am not so clear on proceeding.

dox.Descendants("Student").Select(d=>d.Value).ToList(); 

Am getting count 2 but values are like 2dummy12 3dummy11

Is it possible to convert the above XML to a generic List of type Student which has Id,Name and Section Properties ?

What is the best way I can implement this ?

3 Answers

I see that you have accepted an answer. But I just want to show another way which I like. First you will need classes as below:

public class Student { [XmlElement("Id")] public int StudentID { get; set; } [XmlElement("Name")] public string StudentName { get; set; } [XmlElement("Section")] public int Section { get; set; } } [XmlRoot("School")] public class School { [XmlElement("Student", typeof(Student))] public List<Student> StudentList { get; set; } } 

Then you can deserialize this xml:

string path = //path to xml file using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(path)) { XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(School)); School school = (School)serializer.Deserialize(reader); } 

Hope it will be helpful.

You can create an anonymous type

var studentLst=dox.Descendants("Student").Select(d=> new{ id=d.Element("Id").Value, Name=d.Element("Name").Value, Section=d.Element("Section").Value }).ToList(); 

This creates a list of anonymous type..

If you want to create a list of Student type

class Student{public int id;public string name,string section} List<Student> studentLst=dox.Descendants("Student").Select(d=> new Student{ id=d.Element("Id").Value, name=d.Element("Name").Value, section=d.Element("Section").Value }).ToList(); 

var students = from student in dox.Descendants("Student") select new { id=d.Element("Id").Value, Name=d.Element("Name").Value, Section=d.Element("Section").Value }).ToList(); 

or you can create a class call Student with id, name and section as properties and do:

var students = from student in dox.Descendants("Student") select new Student { id=d.Element("Id").Value, Name=d.Element("Name").Value, Section=d.Element("Section").Value }).ToList();