LINQ to XML: parsing simple XML entry

[selvap]

First time with LINQ to XML, climbing the learning curve...I am looking for the smoothest way how to retrieve and convert the data from XML file, with as little if-else and, god forbid, try-catch statements as possible. I really hate all that lengthy code just to retrieve single value from the doc.Having said this, I am looking for a fail-safe solution, that would work not break if the structure of the XML doc has unexpectedly changed. In such case, I'd expect that null value is retrieved so I could check for it later in code.Here's my XML doc:\[code\]?<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Entry> <IntField>11</IntField> <StringField>String data</StringField> <DateTimeField>28/03/2013 18:10:02</DateTimeField></Entry>\[/code\]I am looking for code where I retrieve one value per row of code, ie:\[code\]myXMLdoc = XDocument.Load("sourceFile.xml");int? myIntField = (smart linq query that retrieves&converts the value, with fallback of null);string? myStringField = (smart linq query etc.);DateTime? myDateTimeField = (smart linq query etc.);if (myIntField == null){ // Complain that structure of the XML doc is bad}\[/code\]Perhaps my expectations that LINQ can do this are na?ve, but, well, having written lumps and lumps of XPath expressions and if-else statements for trivial pretty XML processing, I have accrued some bitterness about it. So I turn to LINQ with big hopes indeed.