Vb.net Question
LINQ to XML, get unique node in VB.NET
I have an XML file that represents a list of books that the user has access to.
<Book Bookid="1" BookName="Book1" />
<Book Bookid="1" BookName="Book1" />
<Book Bookid="2" BookName="Book2" />
<Book Bookid="1" BookName="Book1" />
That is in an XElement named xBooks
I am trying to get each book in the XML once.
Dim DistinctBooks = (From item In xBooks.Elements("Book") Select item).Distinct()
That line doesn't seem to do anything, the value of DistinctBooks is the same as xBooks.
I have searched for the solution, but it seems everyone that is doing LINQ is doing it in C#. Even though i've found other posts in C# that should work, i'm either not translating from C# to VB correctly, or VB does things differently. can anyone bump me in the right direction to get this to work in VB?
Thanks!
Sam
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Answer Source
Assuming this is declared:
Dim xBooks = <books>
<Book Bookid="1" BookName="Book1"/>
<Book Bookid="1" BookName="Book1"/>
<Book Bookid="2" BookName="Book2"/>
<Book Bookid="1" BookName="Book1"/>
</books>
I think you are looking for something like this:
Dim DistinctBooks = From item In xBooks.Elements("Book")
Select bookid = item.Attribute("Bookid").Value,
bookName = item.Attribute("BookName").Value
Distinct
Why it did not work for you is because every node is different if you consider a set of all properties that it implements. With the above you tell it which properties you need as part of a unique key for distinct. Also notice there is no need to combine multiple styles of LINQ (query and functional), you can use word Distinct as part of the query.
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