vb.net: Get data from Xelement <table></table> - vb.net

Question

I have loaded a Xelement from my SharePoint site.
Dim elTable2 As XElement = <table border="1" id="table2" style="font-size:1em;border-collapse:collapse;display:inline;width:100%">
<tbody>
<tr class="ms-rteTableHeaderRow-default" style="text-align:center">
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderFirstCol-default">​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderOddCol-default">LAN IP​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderEvenCol-default">Username​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderOddCol-default">Password​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderEvenCol-default">Port​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderOddCol-default">OS​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderEvenCol-default">Extra Info​</th>
</tr>
<tr class="ms-rteTableOddRow-default" style="text-align:center">
<th class="ms-rteTableFirstCol-default">Netasq</th>
<td class="ms-rteTableOddCol-default"></td>
<td class="ms-rteTableEvenCol-default"></td>
<td class="ms-rteTableOddCol-default">​</td>
<td class="ms-rteTableEvenCol-default">​</td>
<td class="ms-rteTableOddCol-default">​</td>
<td class="ms-rteTableEvenCol-default">​</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
The table will have an unknown number of rows. Can I loop trough all the rows and check what data is in the first column?

Answer 1

You could leverage Html Agility Pack for that purpose. It is a .NET code library that allows to parse HTML content and supports plain XPATH or XSLT.
Example
Dim table As XElement = <table border="1" id="table2" style="font-size:1em;border-collapse:collapse;display:inline;width:100%">
<tbody>
<tr class="ms-rteTableHeaderRow-default" style="text-align:center">
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderFirstCol-default">​Val</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderOddCol-default">LAN IP​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderEvenCol-default">Username​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderOddCol-default">Password​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderEvenCol-default">Port​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderOddCol-default">OS​</th>
<th class="ms-rteTableHeaderEvenCol-default">Extra Info​</th>
</tr>
<tr class="ms-rteTableOddRow-default" style="text-align:center">
<td class="ms-rteTableFirstCol-default">Netasq</td>
<td class="ms-rteTableOddCol-default"></td>
<td class="ms-rteTableEvenCol-default"></td>
<td class="ms-rteTableOddCol-default">​</td>
<td class="ms-rteTableEvenCol-default">​</td>
<td class="ms-rteTableOddCol-default">​</td>
<td class="ms-rteTableEvenCol-default">​</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Dim html = New HtmlDocument()
html.LoadHtml(table.ToString())
For Each row In html.DocumentNode.SelectNodes("//tr[position()>1]") 'XPath expression to select table rows and skip table header
Dim cell As HtmlNode = row.SelectSingleNode("td[1]") 'Get cell for first column
Console.WriteLine(cell.InnerText)
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