XElement.Parse Method (String, LoadOptions) Loads an XElement from a string that contains XML
Imports System Imports System.Xml Imports System.Xml.XPath Public Class MainClass Public Shared Sub Main() Dim whiteSpaceNodes As Integer Dim xmlTree1 As XElement = XElement.Parse("<Root> <Child> </Child> </Root>", LoadOptions.None) whiteSpaceNodes = xmlTree1 _ .DescendantNodesAndSelf() _ .OfType(Of XText)() _ .Where(Function(ByVal tNode As XNode) tNode.ToString().Trim().Length = 0) _ .Count() Console.WriteLine("Count of white space nodes (not preserving whitespace): {0}", whiteSpaceNodes) Dim xmlTree2 As XElement = XElement.Parse("<Root> <Child> </Child> </Root>", LoadOptions.PreserveWhitespace) whiteSpaceNodes = xmlTree2 _ .DescendantNodesAndSelf() _ .OfType(Of XText)() _ .Where(Function(ByVal tNode As XNode) tNode.ToString().Trim().Length = 0) _ .Count() Console.WriteLine("Count of white space nodes (preserving whitespace): {0}", whiteSpaceNodes) End Sub End Class