XElement vs XNode

XElement:

This class represents an XML element, the fundamental XML construct.

An element has an XName, optionally one or more attributes, and can optionally contain content (for more information, see Nodes).

An XElement can contain the following types of content:

• XElement

• XComment

• XProcessingInstruction

• XText

For details about the valid content of an XElement, see Valid Content of XElement and XDocument Objects.

XNode:

XNode is an abstract common base class for the following types:

• XComment

• XContainer

• XDocumentType

• XProcessingInstruction

• XText

XContainer is an abstract common base class for the following types:

• XDocument

• XElement

Objects of classes that derive from XContainer can contain child nodes.

Note
An XAttribute is not an XNode. Attributes are maintained as a list of name/value pairs on an element.

If you are writing a complex XML application, such as an XML editor or a word processor that stores content as XML, you will often work at the node level. Typical activities when working at the node level include adding nodes, deleting nodes, transforming nodes, and iterating through axes that return collections of nodes.