System.Xml.XmlNodeList Class

Overview

The XmlNodeList class provides an ordered collection of nodes from an XmlDocument. It implements IEnumerable and allows iteration over the nodes it contains.

Syntax

public abstract class XmlNodeList : IEnumerable, IEnumerable<XmlNode>

Properties

Name	Type	Description
`Count`	`int`	Gets the number of nodes in the list.
`Item`	`XmlNode`	Gets the node at the specified index.
`this[int index]`	`XmlNode`	Indexer to retrieve a node by its position.

Methods

Name	Signature	Description
`GetEnumerator`	`IEnumerator GetEnumerator()`	Returns an enumerator that iterates through the collection.
`CopyTo`	`void CopyTo(Array array, int index)`	Copies the entire collection to a compatible one-dimensional array, starting at the specified index.

Examples

The following example loads an XML document and retrieves a list of all <book> elements.

using System;
using System.Xml;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        var xml = @"<catalog>
                        <book id='b1'>
                            <title>XML Developer's Guide</title>
                        </book>
                        <book id='b2'>
                            <title>Midnight Rain</title>
                        </book>
                    </catalog>";

        XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
        doc.LoadXml(xml);

        XmlNodeList books = doc.GetElementsByTagName("book");
        Console.WriteLine($"Found {books.Count} books:");

        foreach (XmlNode book in books)
        {
            Console.WriteLine($"- {book.Attributes[""id""].Value}: {book[""title""].InnerText}");
        }
    }
}

Remarks

The collection is live; changes to the underlying XmlDocument are reflected in the XmlNodeList.
Instances of XmlNodeList are typically obtained via methods such as XmlElement.GetElementsByTagName or XmlNode.SelectNodes.
Because the list implements IEnumerable, you can use foreach in C# or for...of in JavaScript (via COM interop) to iterate.