I needed to update a utilities class I have been using to support XDocument (not just XmlDocuments) when I hit upon creating an extension method instead of the typical static utility class/method approach. Extension methods are a simple and powerful means of adding behavior to existing classes without breaking encapsulation. I was initially skeptical of the idea, but they have turned out to be rather nice and syntically better than static utilities classes.

The XDocument class is key part of the LINQ to XML API released with .NET Framework 3.5. Essentially it's a 'next' generation replacement for the XmlDocument class with added functionality for easily modifying in-memory Xml documents. Overall I prefer XDocument over XmlDocumentfor various reasons, but learning a new API can be a bit frustrating; it takes time to build a knowledge base of all of the 'gotchas' and 'hacks' ;)

Anyways, here is the final result:

Note that by convention I named the class after the class I was extending and added the 'Extensions' post fix. This makes things a little easier to manage. Here is the usage: