This section provides a functional transformation tutorial for XML. This includes explanations of the main concepts and language constructs that you must understand to use functional transformations, and examples of using functional transformations to manipulate an XML document. Although this tutorial provides LINQ to XML code examples, all of the underlying concepts also apply to other LINQ technologies.

The Manipulating Information in a Word Document tutorial provides a series of examples, each building on the previous one. These examples demonstrate the pure functional transformational approach to manipulating XML.

This tutorial assumes a working knowledge of C# or Visual Basic, but relevant concepts and syntax new to C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9.0 are explained. Detailed semantics of the language constructs are not provided in this tutorial, but links are provided to the language documentation as appropriate.

A working knowledge of basic computer science concepts and XML, including XML namespaces, is also assumed.