Develop Reference

C# XML deserialization issue

XML to be deserialized:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<changes next="296">
<change>
<objectid>E702C43C-E04B-450B-BEBC-76646AB299C5</objectid>
<parentid>ED98C97F-A202-48ED-AEEA-34362508A30B</parentid>
<objecttype>file</objecttype>
<listentype>remove</listentype>
</change>
<change>
<objectid>3A242975-CEF0-432B-A997-B33D85C138C8</objectid>
<parentid>ED98C97F-A202-48ED-AEEA-34362508A30B</parentid>
<objecttype>file</objecttype>
<listentype>add</listentype>
</change>
</changes>
Data models used:
[XmlRoot("changes")]
public class ChangeListener
{
public List<Change> Changes { get; set; }
}
[XmlRoot("change")]
public class Change
{
[XmlElement("objectid")]
public Guid objectid { get; set; }
[XmlElement("parentid")]
public Guid parentid { get; set; }
[XmlElement("objecttype")]
public string objecttype { get; set; }
[XmlElement("listentype")]
public string listentype { get; set; }
}
Deserialization code, here result is above xml in string format:
(ChangeListener)new XmlSerializer(typeof(ChangeListener)).Deserialize(new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(result)))
But I am getting errors for this code; I also tried couple of things e.g. marked Changes property of ChangeListener class with [XmlElement("changes")] instead of marking class as xmlroot but it also did not worked.
Kindly suggest good approach for this issues.

The problem is that the Changes List in the ChangeListener is confusing the serializer because there's nothing called 'Changes' in the XML.
The only change we need to make is to annotate the declaration of Changes with [XmlElement("change")] as below:
[XmlRoot("changes")]
public class ChangeListener
{
[XmlElement("change")]
public List<Change> Changes { get; set; }
}
The XML shown then deserializes correctly.

The Class for mentioned XML should look like below.
[XmlRoot(ElementName="change")]
public class Change {
[XmlElement(ElementName="objectid")]
public string Objectid { get; set; }
[XmlElement(ElementName="parentid")]
public string Parentid { get; set; }
[XmlElement(ElementName="objecttype")]
public string Objecttype { get; set; }
[XmlElement(ElementName="listentype")]
public string Listentype { get; set; }
}
[XmlRoot(ElementName="changes")]
public class Changes {
[XmlElement(ElementName="change")]
public List<Change> Change { get; set; }
[XmlAttribute(AttributeName="next")]
public string Next { get; set; }
}

Try changing the type of objectid and parentid from Guid to string.
Share the error details if you still get errors.

Automapper with dynamic values C#

I am a bit stuck, hoping for guidance. I have 2 tables, Header and Details. However, the details is a bit different than most, and allows for a way to dynamically store data.: Yes, I am aware that I can create a table storing the details in the standard fashion, but the nature of the app needs to be more dynamic on the database side. I also realize I will have to modify the DTOs for different incarnations of the app, but this model is what I need to accomplish.
public class Header
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string HeaderName { get; set; }
public ICollection<Detail> Details { get; set; }
}
public class Detail
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public int HeaderId { get; set; }
public string FieldName { get; set; }
public string FieldProperty { get; set; }
}
I want to use the following DTOs:
public class DataForDisplayDto
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string HeaderName { get; set; }
public string TaskToPerform { get; set; }
public string Location { get; set; }
}
public class DataForCreationDto
{
public string HeaderName { get; set; }
public string TaskToPerform { get; set; }
public string Location { get; set; }
}
The data would be stored in the details in this fashion:
{
"FieldName": "tasktoperform",
"FieldProperty": "Thing to Do"
},
{
"FieldName": "location",
"FieldProperty": "Over there"
}
I am trying to use the Automapper to make it so I can read and write to the database using the DTOs, but I think I may be trying something it can't do.
Is there an article or something that anyone knows about that can point me in the direction to go? Or even the right keywords to search online for it. Is it even possible?
I suppose if it is not possible, I will have to do things a bit more manually, which is the last option, I am just hoping to do this with Automapper.
Thanks!

How about deriving your DTO from a base class that uses reflection to generate a mapping, and cache that mapping.
This way your DTO need only inherit a base class.

.Net Parse JSON from Google

So I am using one of the google Id API; https://developers.google.com/instance-id/reference/server#manage_registration_tokens_for_push_subscriptions
I have previously been fortunate to have API that had WDSL or similar and been easy to parse into a class.
But the JSON I got back I can not parse easily.
{
"connectDate":"2018-02-12",
"application":"com.chrome.windows",
"subtype":"wp:https://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
"authorizedEntity":"xxxxxx",
"rel":{
"topics":{
"movies":{
"addDate":"2018-01-26"
},
"anotherTopic":{
"addDate":"2018-02-12"
}
}
},
"connectionType":"WIFI",
"platform":"WEBPUSH"
}
Movies and anotherTopics are the topics I created so I can't add them to my class . Or can I?
There are of course ways to do it treating the json as string and using regex or going through the node as a dynamic object (dynamic dyn = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(content);) but ideally I think it should be a dictionary (I think at least) but can not see how.
And as this is Google I assume there is more standard way to handle this kind of JSON.
I have tried creating a dictionary which I couldn't get working.
Stepping through the nodes I can get the data but end up with code like
DateTime.Parse(((Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JValue)((Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JProperty)((Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JContainer)(obj.First)).First).Value).Value.ToString())
I have tried to look for similar JSON parsing exampels but I can not find any.
I did not share my attempt to extract the data in my first edit as I don't think that is the way to do it; it is a hack.
I created a class for it
public class SubscriptionDetails
{
public DateTime connectDate { get; set; }
public string application { get; set; }
public string subtype { get; set; }
public string authorizedEntity { get; set; }
public string connectionType { get; set; }
public string platform { get; set; }
public topics rel { get; set; }
}
But I am stuck when it comes to defining the subclass topics.
So I tried
public class topics : Dictionary<string, object>
which results in one dictionary entry with key topics?
the other option requires a dictionary name
public class topics
{
public Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, string>> DUMMY { get; set; }
}

So thanks to the suggestion from Jamiec I got on the right track.
Of course already the node rel is a dictionary with one item called topics.
So need a few classes to parse the entire thing:
public class SubscriptionDetails
{
public DateTime connectDate { get; set; }
public string application { get; set; }
public string subtype { get; set; }
public string authorizedEntity { get; set; }
public string connectionType { get; set; }
public string platform { get; set; }
public Dictionary<string, topicItems> rel { get; set; }
}
public class topicItems : Dictionary<string, topicData> { }
public class topicData
{
public DateTime addDate { get; set; }
}
But if they add another node to rel in addition to 'topics' this most likely will crash.
Just doesn't seem to be a very good way to structure the data and the deserialised class isn't very user friendly either..
Anyway it works (for now)

Dynamically adding a property to an entity framework object

I have a class like this:
public class Empresa
{
public string Nombre { get; set; }
public string NIT { get; set; }
public string NombreRepresentanteLegal { get; set; }
public string TelefonoRepresentanteLegal { get; set; }
public string NombreContacto { get; set; }
public string TelefonoContacto { get; set; }
}
However in my app, I want the users to be able to add custom properties, for example twitter handle, however I havent found documentation in how to do that, I heard about the EAV model, but thats not performant

You could store the additional data as XML into an XML column, and have the client deserialize / serialize the meta-data appropriately. Xml can be a viable solution for when you don't know the structure of the data, or if the structure can be altered at run-time.
You're also able to INDEX the XML to help with shredding / querying, so performance can be maintained while processing large xml documents.
Your class could contain, an ExtraPropertiesElement, that takes the XML string, and parses it into an XElement, which you could then utilize XPath, to query for the requested xml element/attribute.
One problem with this approach, is that all additional properties are stored in XML in the database, and it's not as easy to perform queries against the data. It's straightforward to do so, but it's not as simple as selecting a column name from a table.
You can read more about the XML Data Type and the uses here.
You can also read up on how to query XML column stores here.
public class Empresa
{
public string Nombre { get; set; }
public string NIT { get; set; }
public string NombreRepresentanteLegal { get; set; }
public string TelefonoRepresentanteLegal { get; set; }
public string NombreContacto { get; set; }
public string TelefonoContacto { get; set; }
[Column(TypeName="xml")]
public string ExtraProperties { get; set; }
[NotMapped]
public XElement ExtraPropertiesElement
{
get { return XElement.Parse(ExtraProperties ); }
set { ExtraProperties = value.ToString(); }
}
}

Deserialize an XML in C# generated by XStream from java

My application has 2 parts, an android client and a windows print server coded in c#.
I used Xstream in java to convert my object to XML (in android). here's a part of it:
<ROOT>
<id>1</id>
<serial>92000</serial>
<date>2013/2/15</date>
<ITEMS>
<ITEM>
<name>/**SOMETHING**/</name>
<idd>/**SOMETHING**/</idd>
<pd>/**SOMETHING**/</pd>
<ed>/**SOMETHING**/</ed>
</ITEM>
<ITEM>
<name>/**SOMETHING**/</name>
<idd>/**SOMETHING**/</idd>
<pd>/**SOMETHING**/</pd>
<ed>/**SOMETHING**/</ed>
</ITEM>
<ITEM>
<name>/**SOMETHING**/</name>
<idd>/**SOMETHING**/</idd>
<pd>/**SOMETHING**/</pd>
<ed>/**SOMETHING**/</ed>
</ITEM>
</ITEMS>
</ROOT>
as you can see, I have 2 object types, one ROOT object type, and a nested list of second object type named ITEMS.
I can read the ROOT object's name,serial and date, but for the nested list of ITEMS object, it always return null.
the class for the Root class in c# is:
[XmlRoot("ROOT")]
public class ROOT_CLASS
{
[XmlElement("id")]
public string idVar{ get; set; }
[XmlElement("serial")]
public string serialVar{ get; set; }
[XmlElement("date")]
public string dateVar{ get; set; }
[XmlArray("ITEMS")]
[XmlArrayItem("ITEM")]
public List<NESTED_CLASS> oi { get; set; }
}
and here is the nested object class:
[XmlRoot("ITEM")]
public class NESTED_CLASS
{
[XmlElement("name")]
public string nameVV; { get; set; }
[XmlElement("idd")]
public string iddVV; { get; set; }
[XmlElement("pd")]
public string pdVV; { get; set; }
[XmlElement("ed")]
public string edVV; { get; set; }
}
okay, How can I deserialize the NESTED_CLASS list out of this xml? as I said, I always get a null out of it. please help me.
thanks...

Use XmlArray attribute
[XmlRoot(ElementName = "ROOT")]
public class Root
{
public int id { get; set; }
public int serial { get; set; }
public string date { get; set; }
[XmlArray(ElementName = "ITEMS")]
[XmlArrayItem("ITEM")]
public List<RootItem> Items { get; set; }
}
public class RootItem
{
public string name { get; set; }
public string idd { get; set; }
public string pd { get; set; }
public string ed { get; set; }
}

Instead of doing this manually, you could also generate your C# class by using xsd.exe. This may be easier, and faster in case this xml changes over time; and you don't have to worry about problems you are having now.
See Generate C# class from XML for an example on how to do that.
Note that if you are working with very large xml files, this approach may not be the best one as it loads the entire xml into memory. If this is the case, you might want to use this approach instead.