Find values under one node in XML

Question

Below is xml file format from which words to be searched.

Preface


             


        

Answer 1

It is not possible theoretically. The reason is that XML/XPATH does not ensure order as the result of a query is a "node-set" which by definition is "an unordered collection of nodes without duplicates".

http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath/

Nevertheless, you can get close to the requirement. For example, you can get the first word:

XmlDocument objXmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
XmlNodeList objXmlNodeList;
objXmlDoc.Load(sFilePath);
objXmlNodeList = objXmlDoc.SelectNodes("//Word");
string s = string.Empty;
XmlNodeList wordNodes = objXmlNodeList[0].ChildNodes;
foreach (XmlNode characterNode in wordNodes)
{
   s = s + characterNode.InnerText;
}

Answer 2

I would use Linq2Xml

XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Parse(xml); //or XDocument.Load(fileName)
var words = xDoc.Descendants("Word")
                .Select(w => String.Join("",w.Descendants("Char").Select(c => c.Value)))
                .ToList();

--EDIT--

for @Y.Ecarri

var words2 = xDoc.XPathSelectElements("//Word")
                 .Select(w => String.Join("", w.Elements().Select(c => c.Value)))
                 .ToList();