Linq query converted to List <string>

Question

I have this code

List<string> IDs = new List<string>();
    XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(xmlFile);
    var query = from c in doc.Root.Elements("a").Elements("b")
        select new { ID = c.Element("val").Value};

How to convert a query to List without loop foreach?

{ ID = c.Element("val")}

- these, of course, are strings

EDIT

my xml file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<aBase xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <a>
    <b>
      <val>other data</val>
    </b>
    <b>

      <val>other data</val>
    </b>
  </a>
</aBase>

Answer 1

IDs = query.Select(a  => a.ID).ToList();

or if you want to do it on one line

List<string> IDs = (from c in doc.Root.Elements("a").Elements("b")
        select c.Element("val").Value).ToList()

Answer 2

An anonymous type doesn't really help you, since you only need a sequence of strings, not some tuple. Try:

XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(xmlFile);
var query = from c in doc.Root.Elements("a").Elements("b")
            select c.Element("val").Value;

var IDs = query.ToList();

Personally, I would just use the syntax method completely:

var IDs = doc.Root.Elements("a")
                  .Elements("b")
                  .Select(c => c.Element("val").Value)
                  .ToList();