Include raw XML when deserializing XML - c#

I have the following XML and classes that are being serialized from it:
<Alerts>
<io id="1">
<name>Foo</name>
<status>Active</status>
</io>
<io id="2">
<name>Bar</name>
<status>Inactive</status>
</io>
</Alerts>
[XmlRoot("Alerts")]
[Serializable]
public class Alerts
{
[XmlElement("io")]
public List<Alert> { get; set; }
}
public class Alert
{
[XmlElement("name")]
public string Name { get; set; }
[XmlElement("status")]
public string Status { get; set; }
}
What I require is a property in my Alert class, that upon deserialization contains the XML of its node. For example, after deserializing the provided XML, I end up with a list of 2 Alert objects. I would need the first alert to have a property that contains this as a string:
<io id="1">
<name>Foo</name>
<status>Active</status>
</io>
Any ideas how I can achieve this?

I think the only way to actually accomplish this is to have a string property, and then in your xml replace the xml reserved characters with entity character references so it doesn't get serialized as xml. So your xml would look something like:
<io id="1">
<name>Foo</name>
<status>Active</status>
<innerAlert>
<io id="3"><name>FooBar</name><status>Inactive</status><innerAlert></innerAlert></io>
</innerAlert>
I still keep going back to my comment and thinking that you might be better off adding a property of type Alert or IEnumerable to your Alert class and let the tree deserialize out all the way down, but maybe that's just not an option to you.

Related

Change the way how list is serialized into XML

So, I have a class with a list of objects like this:
public int SourceId { get; set; }
public int TargetId { get; set; }
public List<ExtraParameter> ExtraParameters { get; }
Then, when it is serialized into XML file, the output is like this:
<Connection>
<SourceId>0</SourceId>
<TargetId>1</TargetId>
<ExtraParameters>
<ExtraParameter>
<Input>0</Input>
<Output>1</Output>
<Enabled>true</Enabled>
</ExtraParameter>
<ExtraParameter>
<Input>1</Input>
<Output>0</Output>
<Enabled>true</Enabled>
</ExtraParameter>
</ExtraParameters>
</Connection>
But I need to serialize this array of elements (ExtraParameter) using C#'s XmlSerializer into this form:
<Connection>
<SourceId>0</SourceId>
<TargetId>1</TargetId>
<ExtraParameter>
<Input>0</Input>
<Output>1</Output>
<Enabled>true</Enabled>
</ExtraParameter>
<ExtraParameter>
<Input>1</Input>
<Output>0</Output>
<Enabled>true</Enabled>
</ExtraParameter>
</Connection>
So in other words, can I somehow just list the items in that ExtraParameters-list without having that list in this hierarchy? So it does look like objects in the ExtraParameters are just listed at the end of the TargetID-node.
edit: Yes, I know, this kinda breaks the structure, but this xml file is then deserialized by the next program correctly, and I don't have control over that.
You can do this by adding the XmlElement attribute to the relevant property. Per the docs:
If you apply the XmlElementAttribute to a field or property that returns an array, the items in the array are encoded as a sequence of XML elements.
[XmlElement("ExtraParameter")]
public List<ExtraParameter> ExtraParameters { get; }
You could also change the property name rather than adding a value for ElementName to the attribute.
See this fiddle for a working demo.

Deserializing an XML into a object: XML element with xsi:nil="true" should have null value (and not empty value) for respective property in object

When de-serializing the below XML into Parent class, ElementTwo and ElementThree are empty strings, which is expected. But ElementOne should have been null but instead this is also empty string.
What does i:nil="true" mean?
XML
<?xml version = \"1.0\" ?>
<Parent
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<ElementOne xsi:nil="true"/>
<ElementTwo></ElementTwo>
<ElementThree />
<ElementFour>Value</ElementFour>
</Parent>
C# Class
public class Parent
{
public string ElementOne { get; set; }
public string ElementTwo { get; set; }
public string ElementThree { get; set; }
public string ElementFour { get; set; }
}
When de-serializing the XML into an object, the XML element with xsi:nil="true" is not being converted as null. Instead, it is assigned as empty string. But I've a requirement where it should be converted as null only. Please help me to figure out a solution or point put where I went wrong
I've given the sample used in below fiddle link:
https://dotnetfiddle.net/VfNJYv
Put
[XmlElement(IsNullable=true)]
above the
Public string ElementOne get/set property
.NET fiddle

Difference between XmlElement and XmlElementAttribute in c# xml serialization

What is difference between XmlElement and XmlElementAttribute in c# xml serialization. I am facing an issue while xml serialization of an object.
Actually, I have 2 fields with the same name. 1 in Base class and other in child class and I need to set different element names for those to show in xml doc.
Well, It depends on your XML file structure. If the child element is a an xml tag, you should add XmlElement data annotation. If the property of your class is bound to an attribute related to the current node, then add an attribute data annotation.
[Serializable()]
public class Person
{
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElement("Name")]
public string Name{ get; set; }
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElement("Phone")]
public int Phone { get; set; }
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElement("Address ")]
public string Address { get; set; }
}
In this case your xml structure should like this:
<person>
<name>...</name>
<phone>...</phone>
<address>...</address>
</person>
Now if the properties represents child attributes, it will be like this:
<person name='...' phone='...' address='...'></person>

Deserialize unknown section into List or Dictionary

I have the following XML file:
<Error>0</Error>
<Description>1</Description>
<Document>
<ObjectID>06098INF1761320</ObjectID>
<ced>109340336</ced>
<abstract>DAVID STEVENSON</abstract>
<ced_a />
<NAM_REC />
<ced_ap2 />
</Document>
So I deserialize it on C# (4.0) with this objects structure:
[XmlElement("Error")]
public string Error { get; set; }
[XmlElement("Description")]
public string Description { get; set; }
[XmlElement("Document")]
public List<EDocument> LstDocument { get; set; }
So here's my issue: the element "Document" has unknown sub-elements: ObjectID, ced, etc., is there a way that I can deserialize those unknows elements into a List, Array, Dictionary or something to iterate with (something like this, it DOESN'T have to be exactly like this, I'm just guessing):
object.LstDocument[0].ListDocument.name; //to get the name
object.LstDocument[0].ListDocument.value; //to get the value
Any help would be appreciated.
EDIT 1:
To add some extra clarification to my question:
The child nodes under "Document" element are unknown because they are variable, with this I mean that at a moment I could have "ObjectID" and "ced", in other moment they could be "ced","ABC", etc. I'm not sure which elements came there as child nodes, all I know is that they are elements (not attributes) and that they don't have any child-nodes inside them.

c# deserialize xml with a specified 'encoding' and 'stylesheet' lines

I am creating an XML file using the System.Xml.Serialization module.
I have a class that gets serialized into an XML file. The file looks like this:
<itemList xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<itemListed>
<item ID="81288" Synopsys="Reset search point" CompletedTime="7/27/10 4:12 PM" Resolver="owner1" />
<item ID="81285" Synopsys="Added contructor" CompletedTime="6/05/10 9:23 AM" Resolver="owner2" />
</itemListed>
</itemList>
Problem is, I would like it to generate this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="item.xsl"?>
<itemListed>
<item ID="81288" Synopsys="Reset search point" CompletedTime="7/27/10 4:12 PM" Resolver="owner1" />
<item ID="81285" Synopsys="Added contructor" CompletedTime="6/05/10 9:23 AM" Resolver="owner2" />
</itemListed>
Any idea what I need to change to my class?
My code:
public class Item
{
[XmlAttribute("ID")]
public string ID { get; set; }
[XmlAttribute("Synopsys")]
public string Synopsys { get; set; }
[XmlAttribute("CompletedTime")]
public string CompletedTime { get; set; }
[XmlAttribute("Resolver")]
public string Resolver { get; set; }
}
public class ItemList
{
[XmlArray(ElementName = "itemListed")]
[XmlArrayItem(ElementName = "item")]
public List<Item> ItemList { get; set; }
}
I appreciate any help.
Thanks
Tony
I haven't found an easy way to customize the stylesheet or the encoding line but I found a good suggestion here:
link text
The idea is to pretty much write your own serialization class. I took the idea from the article and I created a class that serializes the class (using the C# library) then a filter modifies the header to modify the encoding line and add the stylesheet line.
When I load the xml, I read the file, I pass it through the filter to remove the stylesheet line and I change back the encoding line. Once I have done that, I use the de-serializer provided by C#.
It seems to work.
Tony
One solution might be to implement IXmlSerializable interface on your class. I'm not sure if the XmlWriter will allow you to write a XML tag or not. Proper way to implement IXmlSerializable?

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