how to get the xml element with namespaces

Question

I recently started learning xml, xpath, xmldocuemtn in c#.

I have an xml as shown bellow..namespaces is confusing me a lot

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?mso-application progid="Excel.Sheet"?>
<Workbook xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet"
   xmlns:x="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel"
   xmlns:ss="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet"
   xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<Worksheet ss:Name="Pricing">
</Worksheet>
<Worksheet ss:Name="Order">
</Worksheet>
</Workbook>

Here is my c# code..

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
            doc.Load(ExcelFilePath);

Can you tell me how i can get Worksheet elemet with ss:Name attribute='Pricing'

Answer 1

You have to use XmlNamespaceManager to provide namespaces:

var namespaceMgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(doc.NameTable);
namespaceMgr.AddNamespace("x", "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet");
namespaceMgr.AddNamespace("ss", "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet");
var node = doc.SelectSingleNode("//x:Worksheet[@ss:Name='Pricing']", namespaceMgr);

Note that prefixes for namespaces not must match those from XML - the value of namespace counts. So, for example, I've defined ss as in XML, but default (root) namespace I've named x - it does not matter as long as its value is the same.

To be more strict, you can change XPath to /x:Workbook/x:Worksheet[@ss:Name='Pricing'] of course.