LINQ -> XML Handle non-existing element-nodes

I'm currently using Linq to parse an xml file as Linq takes fewer lines of code, but I'm having a small issue with in-consistent xml-files. I'm trying to parse out a Series class from an xml which is basically set up like this:

<series>
    <showid>5</showid>
    <showname>fringe</showname>
    <overview>description of the tv-show fringe.</overview>
</series>

And this is all well and good, this is easily parsed with the following code:

var series = from serie in xdoc.Descendants ("Series")
    select new TvShow()
    {
         ShowID = (string) serie.Element("seriesid").Value,
         ShowName = (string) serie.E开发者_开发技巧lement ("SeriesName").Value,
         ShowDescription = (string) serie.Element ("Overview").Value,
    };

But the problem arrives once i stumble over entries which doesn't have an "overview" tag... Is there a way to return an empty string if the element "overview" doesn't exist?

Absolutely. Don't use the Value property - use the explicit conversion to string instead. That way you'll get null if the element doesn't exist, and you can use the null coalescing operator:

var series = from serie in xdoc.Descendants("Series")
             select new TvShow()
             {
                 ShowID = (string) serie.Element("seriesid"),
                 ShowName = (string) serie.Element("SeriesName"),
                 ShowDescription = (string) serie.Element("Overview") ?? "",
             };

(Obviously you can do the same for ShowName and ShowID too.)

Note that all of the custom conversions from XAttribute and XElement have a nullable version, e.g. casting to int? instead of int... they all work the same way, returning a null value if the original element or attribute is null.