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Accessing XML in Visual Basic

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Visual Basic provides XML axis properties for accessing and navigating LINQ to XML structures. These properties use a special syntax to enable you to access elements and attributes by specifying the XML names.

The following table lists the language features that enable you to access XML elements and attributes in Visual Basic.

XML axis properties

Property description Example Description
child axis contact.<phone> Gets all phone elements that are child elements of the contact element.
attribute axis phone.@type Gets the type attribute of the phone element.
descendant axis contacts...<name> Gets all name elements of the contacts element, regardless of how deep in the hierarchy they occur.
extension indexer contacts...<name>(0) Gets the first name element from the sequence.
value contacts...<name>.Value Gets the string representation of the first object in the sequence, or Nothing if the sequence is empty.

In this section

How to: Access XML Descendant Elements
Shows how to use a descendant axis property to access all XML elements that have a specified name and that are contained under a specified XML element.

How to: Access XML Child Elements
Shows how to use a child axis property to access all XML child elements that have a specified name in an XML element.

How to: Access XML Attributes
Shows how to use an attribute axis property to access all XML attributes that have a specified name in an XML element.

How to: Declare and Use XML Namespace Prefixes
Shows how to declare an XML namespace prefix and use it to create and access XML elements.

XML Axis Properties
Provides links to sections describing the various XML access properties.

Overview of LINQ to XML in Visual Basic
Provides an introduction to using LINQ to XML in Visual Basic.

Creating XML in Visual Basic
Provides an introduction to using XML literals in Visual Basic.

Manipulating XML in Visual Basic
Provides links to sections about loading and modifying XML in Visual Basic.

XML Provides links to sections describing how to use LINQ to XML in Visual Basic.