Using Xpath With Default Namespace in C#

Question

I\'ve got an XML document with a default namespace. I\'m using a XPathNavigator to select a set of nodes using Xpath as follows:

XmlElement myXML = ...;           


        

Answer 1

For anyone looking for a quick hack solution, especially in those cases where you know the XML and don't need to worry about namespaces and all that, you can get around this annoying little "feature" by simply reading the file to a string and replacing the offensive attribute:

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
string fileData = File.ReadAllText(fileName);
fileData = fileData.Replace(" xmlns=\"", " whocares=\"");
using (StringReader sr = new StringReader(fileData))
{
   doc.Load(sr);
}

XmlNodeList nodeList = doc.SelectNodes("project/property");

I find this easier than all the other non-sense requiring a prefix for a default namespace when I'm dealing with a single file. Hope this helps.