XDocument get XML element by the value of its name attribute

Question

I have an XML result like this

  
    0
    

        

Answer 1

Does this solve your problem:

var test = from c in xml.Descendants("doc")
           select new 
           {
               firstname = c.Elements("str").First(element => element.Attribute("name").Value == "ContaFirstname"),
               surnmane = c.Elements("str").First(element => element.Attribute("name").Value == "ContaSurname")
           }; 

or, if you want the values (instead of XElement:

var test = from c in xml.Descendants("doc")
           select new 
           {
               firstname = c.Elements("str").First(element => element.Attribute("name").Value == "ContaFirstname").Value,
               surnmane = c.Elements("str").First(element => element.Attribute("name").Value == "ContaSurname").Value
           }; 

Answer 2

You don't want to access the elements by name as most people would interpret that statement. You want to access the elements by the value of their name attribute:

firstname = (string) c.Elements("str")
                      .First(x => x.Attribute("name").Value == "ContaFirstname");
//etc

You may well want to abstract that into a separate method, as it's going to be a pain to do it multiple times. For example:

public static XElement ElementByNameAttribute(this XContainer container,
                                              string name)
{
    return container.Elements("str")
                    .First(x => x.Attribute("name").Value == name);
}

Then:

var test = from c in xml.Descendants("doc")
           select new 
           { 
               firstname = c.ElementByNameAttribute("ContaFirstname").Value,
               surnmane = c.ElementByNameAttribute("ContaSurname").Value
           }; 

If you have any chance to give your document a more sensible structure, that would be preferable...