InvalidCastExeption in LINQ to XML

Question

I am using LINQ to XML to take some data from resources , and here I have a function, where I take some values and then I create a new object (Type Translation), so when I call the function I get a Translation object. By now I have this code:

     Public Shared Function RetrieveTranslation(ByVal file As String) As List(Of clsTranslation)
    Dim valuetrans = From vl In XElement.Load(file).Elements("data") Select (New clsTranslation With {.Filename = file, .Value = vl.Element("value").Value, .TranslationId = vl.Attribute("name").Value})
    Return valuetrans
End Function

The problem is that with this code I got this error: Unable to cast object of type 'WhereSelectEnumerableIterator2[System.Xml.Linq.XElement,clsTranslation]' to type 'System.Collections.Generic.List1[clsTranslation]'.

Do you know the way to cast it? Thanks in advance,

Alfonso.

Answer 1

If you were compiling with Option Strict on, you'd have found this out at compile time.

You don't cast it - you call ToList() on the result, to create a List<clsTranslation> from the IEnumerable<clsTranslation>.

(I'd also advise you to ditch the cls prefix; it goes against the .NET naming conventions.)

That would leave:

Public Shared Function RetrieveTranslation(ByVal file As String) _
        As List(Of Translation)
    Return (From vl In XElement.Load(file).Elements("data") _
            Select (New Translation With { _
                               .Filename = file, _
                               .Value = vl.Element("value").Value, _
                               .TranslationId = vl.Attribute("name").Value}) _
           ).ToList()
End Function