A little example of how xlinq can make life eassier on us. And the pitfalls on how to get it to work.

I have have an xml file named Translation_En.xml.

Translation_En.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<FormType>
  <Vaccation>Vaccation</Vaccation>
  <Mission>Mission</Mission>
  <Holiday>Holiday</Holiday>
</FormType>

And then the class that will get the data and save it. Don't forget to set references to system.core, system.data.linq, system.xml and system.xml.linq.

Imports System.Linq

Public Class Translation
    Private _Vaccation As String
    Private _Mission As String
    Private _Holiday As String
    Private _Language As String

    Public Sub New(ByVal Language As String)
        _language = Language
    End Sub

    Public Property Language() As String
        Get
            Return _Language
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _Language = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Public Property Vaccation() As String
        Get
            _Vaccation = GetTranslation("Vaccation")
            Return _Vaccation
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            SaveTranslation("Vaccation",value)
            _Vaccation = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Public Property Mission() As String
        Get
            _Mission = GetTranslation("Mission")
            Return _Mission
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            SaveTranslation("Mission",value)
            _Mission = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Public Property Holiday() As String
        Get
            _Holiday = GetTranslation("Holiday")
            Return _Holiday
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            SaveTranslation("Holiday",value)
            _Holiday = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Private Function GetTranslation(ByVal Element As String) As String
        Dim _return As String = Element
        Try
            Dim _File As XElement = XElement.Load(GetFilename)
            Dim _Element As IEnumerable(Of XElement) = From c In _File.Elements(Element) Select c
            _return = _Element.Value.ToString
        Catch ex As Exception
            MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
        End Try
        Return _return
    End Function

    Private Sub SaveTranslation(ByVal Element As String, ByVal value As String)
        Dim _File As XElement = Nothing
        Dim _Element As IEnumerable(Of XElement) = Nothing
        Try
            _File = XElement.Load(GetFilename)
            _Element = From c In _File.Elements(Element.ToString) Select c
            _Element(0).SetValue(value)
            _File.Save(GetFilename)
        Catch ex As Exception
            MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub
    Private Function GetFilename() As String
        Return "Translation_En.xml"
    End Function

 End Class

And now let me explain a bit further.
First of all this class has getters and setters but that is not important

The most iportant bit is the getranslation function.

this line gets the data from the file and puts it in an Xelement object

Dim _File As XElement = XElement.Load(GetFilename)

The next line takes out the Element we want. We don't need to specify the root element(a misstake I made the first time around.)

Dim _Element As IEnumerable(Of XElement) = From c In _File.Elements(Element) Select c

The last line just takes the value of the element and puts it in a string value.

_return = _Element.Value.ToString

So that is how we get data out of one element.

Now we want to update the file and that's what savetranslation is for, it is so easy to understand if you name your methods correctly.

Again we load the file and get the correct element

_File = XElement.Load(GetFilename)
_Element = From c In _File.Elements(Element.ToString) Select c

Then we set the first elements vale (since we only have one returned to us it has to be the first one). 

_Element(0).SetValue(value)

And last but not least we save the file.

_File.Save(GetFilename)

Of course you could make this a lot better. And I will in a next episode.