XmlReader.ReadValueAsObject() Method

public object ReadValueAsObject()

Summary

Reads the current node's value as an object. This is a convenient shortcut to call ReadValueAs<object>().

Remarks

This method is useful when you need to retrieve the value of an element or attribute and want to handle it as a generic object type. The actual type of the returned object depends on the underlying XML content. For example, if the XML contains a boolean value, it will be returned as a bool. If it's a string, it will be returned as a string.

If the current node does not have a value (e.g., it's an element with no content, or a start/end tag), this method returns null.

Returns

An object representing the value of the current node, or null if the node has no value.

Exceptions

This method does not throw exceptions directly related to reading the value. However, underlying XML parsing or conversion errors might manifest as exceptions if they occur during the process.

Example

// Assume xmlString contains valid XML
string xmlString = @"<root><element boo=""true""/></root>";

using (StringReader reader = new StringReader(xmlString))
{
    XmlReader xmlReader = XmlReader.Create(reader);

    while (xmlReader.Read())
    {
        if (xmlReader.IsStartElement())
        {
            if (xmlReader.Name == "element")
            {
                // Read the attribute value as an object
                object attrValue = xmlReader.GetAttribute("boo").ReadValueAsObject();
                // attrValue will be a boolean true

                // Read the element's value as an object (will be null if no content)
                object elementValue = xmlReader.ReadValueAsObject();
                // elementValue will be null in this case as "element" has no content

                // To read actual element content, you'd typically read the next node
                if (xmlReader.ReadToFollowing("element"))
                {
                    object contentValue = xmlReader.ReadValueAsObject();
                     // If the element was <element>some text</element>, contentValue would be "some text"
                }
            }
        }
    }
    xmlReader.Close();
}