Please excuse my stupidity, I tend to find the traversing XML overly complicated.

I am using ASP.NET in VB.

I have an XML document which contains all the details of staff in my company...

<staff>
    <staffName>Test Staff</staffName>
    <staffTitle>Slave</staffTitle>
    <staffDepartmentName>Finance</staffDepartmentName>
    <staffOffice>London</staffOffice>
    <staffEmail>[email protected]</staffEmail>
    <staffPhone>0207 123 456</staffPhone>
    <staffNotes>Working hours Mon to Thurs 9.15 - 5.15</staffNotes>
    <staffBio></staffBio>
</staff>

As you can see, some nodes do not always contain data for ever member of staff; only Directors have biographies.

I access the values like this...

For Each staff In ( _
    From matches In myXMLFile.Descendants("staff").Descendants("staffName") _
        Where matches.Nodes(0).ToString.ToLower.Contains(LCase(search)) _
        Order By matches.Value _
        Select matches)
    staffName = staff.Descendants("staffName").Nodes(0).ToString)
    staffTitle = staff.Descendants("staffTitle").Nodes(0).ToString)
    staffOffice = staff.Descendants("staffOffice").Nodes(0).ToString)
    staffEmail = staff.Descendants("staffEmail").Nodes(0).ToString)
    staffPhone = staff.Descendants("staffPhone").Nodes(0).ToString)
    staffNotes = staff.Descendants("staffNotes").Nodes(0).ToString)
    staffBio = staff.Descendants("staffBio").Nodes(0).ToString)

    ' Do something with that data...
Next

Once it gets to staffBio I get an error saying "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." obviously because that node does not exist.

My question is how can I assign the value to a variable even when it is empty without having to do a conditional check before each assignment?