This method reads the text content at the current reader position and converts it to the requested return type. Text, white space, significant white space and CDATA sections are concatenated. Comments and processing instructions are skipped and entity references are automatically resolved.

This method is used to read, convert if necessary, and return atomic value items from the current node content. If the input type is a valid mappings for the type of the current node then an instance of the target type containing the value of the current node is returned. The Mapping XML Data Types to CLR Types topic has a list of the default mappings.

For example, if you had the following XML text:

<elem>123 <!-- comment --> <?pi my_text?> 456 <?pi another_pi?></elem>

If the data is typed and a string array is supplied to the ReadContentAs method call, then the integer values are converted from strings according to the list of valid CLR type mappings.

If the data is untyped and a string array is supplied to the ReadContentAs method call, then the content is parsed into separate strings. An array containing two strings is returned with the values "123" and "456". The spaces are not preserved from the content.

In general when reading untyped data the content is parsed according to the supplied type. For example, if an integer array is supplied to the ReadContentAs method call then the string is parsed into an array of integers {123,456}.

In the following example the XML text is not separated by spaces

<elem>123<!-- comment --><?pi my_text?>456789<?pi another_pi?></elem>

If the content is untyped and a string array is supplied to the ReadContentAs method call then an array containing one concatenated string is returned with the value "123456789".

The following table describes how this method treats each node type.

For more information, see Reading Typed Data and the W3C XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes recommendation.

The following example uses the ReadContentAs method to return the contents of the colors element into an array of string objects.

Using reader As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create("dataFile_2.xml")

  reader.ReadToDescendant("item")

  reader.MoveToAttribute("colors")
  Dim colors As String() = CType(reader.ReadContentAs(GetType(String()), Nothing), String())
  Dim color As String
  For Each color In  colors
    Console.WriteLine("Colors: {0}", color)
  Next color

End Using

using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create("dataFile_2.xml")) {
      reader.ReadToDescendant("item");

      reader.MoveToAttribute("colors");
      string[] colors = (string[]) reader.ReadContentAs(typeof(string[]),null);
      foreach (string color in colors) {
         Console.WriteLine("Colors: {0}", color);
      }                     
}

The example uses the dataFile_2.xml file as input.

<root>
  <item sale-item='true' productID='123456' colors='blue green black'>
    <price>9.95</price>
  </item>
  <item sale-item='false' productID='124390'>
    <price>5.95</price>
  </item>
  <item sale-item='true' productID='53298'>
    <price>12.95</price>
  </item>
</root>

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows XP Starter Edition, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2000 SP4, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 98, Windows CE, Windows Mobile for Smartphone, Windows Mobile for Pocket PC, Xbox 360, Zune

.NET Framework

.NET Compact Framework

XNA Framework

Reference

Other Resources