Extract value of an XML element from a document

GetXmlElementValue.cs

        /// <summary>
        /// Extract an element value from an XML document
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="xmlDocumentString">XML document string</param>
        /// <param name="xmlns">XML namespace</param>
        /// <param name="elementName">name of element whose value is to be returned</param>
        /// <returns>System.String</returns>
        /// <exception cref="System.Exception">thrown on failure</exception>
        public static string GetXmlElementValue(string xmlDocumentString, string xmlns, string elementName)
        {
            var xdoc = XDocument.Parse(xmlDocumentString);
            XNamespace xns = xmlns;
            var element = xdoc.Element(xns + elementName);
            return element.Value;
        }

Example: Say you have this XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<string xmlns="http://example.com/webservices/">This is a string value</string>

You can call this:

var result = GetXmlElementValue(xml, "http://example.com/webservices", "string");

to get "This is a string value".