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Parsing XML with Mixed Namespace Declarations in C# - Unexpected Null Reference Exceptions

šŸ‘€ Views: 44 šŸ’¬ Answers: 1 šŸ“… Created: 2025-06-14
c# xml linq parsing namespaces C#

Can someone help me understand I'm trying to figure out I'm trying to debug I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but Quick question that's been bugging me - I'm currently working on parsing an XML document that has mixed namespace declarations, and I'm working with a `NullReferenceException` when trying to access elements within those namespaces... The XML structure looks something like this: ```xml <root xmlns:ns1="http://example.com/ns1" xmlns:ns2="http://example.com/ns2"> <ns1:item> <ns1:name>Item 1</ns1:name> </ns1:item> <ns2:item> <ns2:name>Item 2</ns2:name> </ns2:item> </root> ``` I’m using `System.Xml.Linq` to parse the XML like this: ```csharp XDocument doc = XDocument.Load("path/to/xmlfile.xml"); var ns1 = "http://example.com/ns1"; var ns2 = "http://example.com/ns2"; var items1 = doc.Descendants(XName.Get("item", ns1)); foreach (var item in items1) { var name = item.Element(XName.Get("name", ns1))?.Value; Console.WriteLine(name); } var items2 = doc.Descendants(XName.Get("item", ns2)); foreach (var item in items2) { var name = item.Element(XName.Get("name", ns2))?.Value; Console.WriteLine(name); } ``` When I run this code, I get a `System.NullReferenceException` at `var name = item.Element(XName.Get("name", ns2))?.Value;` for the second namespace items, even though I can see the items in the XML. I've verified that the namespaces are being correctly assigned. I tried checking if `item` is null before accessing its elements, but it still throws the exception. I also used `item.Descendants()` instead of `item.Element()`, but that didn't resolve the scenario. Can anyone guide to figure out what's going wrong here? Am I missing something in how namespaces work in LINQ to XML? I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. I'm working on a API that needs to handle this. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. Cheers for any assistance! I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning C#. This issue appeared after updating to C# 3.10.