Linq-to-XML: Adding enumerations to objects - vb.net

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to add an enumeration to an object with Linq. For example:
Dim thingBlock = <Things>
<Thing Name="Ish">
<SmallThing>Jibber</SmallThing>
<SmallThing>Jabber</SmallThing>
</Thing>
<Thing Name="Ugly Guy">
<SmallThing Name="Carl"></SmallThing>
<SmallThing Marks="Marks"></SmallThing>
</Thing>
</Things>
Dim myList As New List(Of Thing)
myList.AddRange(thingBlock.<Thing>.Select(Function(th) New Thing With {.Name = th.#Name}))
Public Class Thing
Public Property Name As String
Public Property SmallThings As New List(Of String)
End Class
This works well to create new Thing and add them to myList, but I can't figure out how to add the IEnumerable of String to my SmallThings list. For example, this doesn't work:
myList.AddRange(thingBlock.<Thing>.Select(Function(th) New Thing With {.Name = th.#Name, th.Select(Function(st) .SmallThings.Add(st.Elements.#Name.ToString)}))
I just want to add all the <SmallThing>.#Name to SmallThings property of the Thing class.

Answer 1

I'm not sure which values you wanted to extract from the <SmallThing>s but this seems to work.
' adds "Jibber" and "Jabber" '
myList.AddRange(thingBlock.<Thing>.Select(Function(th) New Thing With _
{ _
.Name = th.#Name, _
.SmallThings = th...<SmallThing>.Select(Function(st) st.Value).ToList _
}))
' adds "Carl" '
myList.AddRange(thingBlock.<Thing>.Select(Function(th) New Thing With _
{ _
.Name = th.#Name, _
.SmallThings = th...<SmallThing>.Select(Function(st) st.#Name).ToList _
}))
The key was to convert the projection to a list since SmallThings expected a list (Select returns an IEnumerable(Of T))