One-Liner for Xml String Deserialization

Question

Following my question on serializing a System.Array to a Xml string, I would like to ask if anyone knows of a one-line instruction to go the other way round, that is, to convert a Xml string such as

<Root><Element>a</Element><Element>b</Element></Root>

to a new string[] { "a", "b" } object. I suspect that using String.Split would be enough for the case, but it doesn't seem like the most elegant solution, does it?

Answer 1

string test = "<Root><Element>a</Element><Element>b</Element></Root>";
var results = XElement.Parse(test).Elements("Element").Select(e => e.Value).ToArray();

1. Parse the string
2. Select the elements called "Element"
3. Select the value in the elements
4. Convert to array.
5. (Optionally)Format it so it's one line.

Answer 2

How about

var data = XElement.Parse("<Root><Element>a</Element><Element>b</Element></Root>").Elements("Element").Select(e=>e.Value).ToArray();

I would advise making this more than one line for readability.