I have an Xml document that looks similar too
<Reports xmlns="">
<Report>
<ReportID>1</ReportID>
<ParameterTemplate />
</Report>
</Reports>
It fails serializing to this object
[XmlType(TypeName = "Report")]
public class Report
{
[XmlElement("ReportID")]
public int ID { get; set; }
[XmlElement("ParameterTemplate")]
public XElement ParameterTemplate { get; set; }
}
It's failing because the empty ParameterTemplate element, because if it contains child elements it deserializes fine.
How can I get this to work?
This is my Deserialization Code
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Report));
return (Report)serializer.Deserialize(source.CreateReader());
The exception is
The XmlReader must be on a node of type Element instead of a node of type EndElement.
How can I get this to deserialize with the existing xml?
Thanks
-c
It looks like the content of XElement - if not null - cannot be an empty XML element. In other words, you would not be able to serialize that XML in your example from an in-memory representation/instance of your Report class.
You can implement IXmlSerializable interface on your report class and overwrite ReadXml and WriteXml methods.
I created the following method to patch the XML text:
Public Function XMLReaderPatch(rawXML As String) As String
If String.IsNullOrEmpty(rawXML) Then Return rawXML
'Pattern for finding items similar to <name*/> where * may represent whitespace followed by text and/or whitespace
Dim pattern As String = "<(\S+)(\s[^<|>]*)?/>"
'Pattern for replacing with items similar to <name*></name> where * may represent whitespace followed by text and/or whitespace
Dim replacement As String = "<$1$2></$1>"
Dim rgx As New Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(pattern)
Return rgx.Replace(rawXML, replacement)
End Function
Use IsNullable=True
[XmlType(TypeName = "Report")]
public class Report
{
[XmlElement("ReportID")]
public int ID { get; set; }
[XmlElement("ParameterTemplate", IsNullable=true)]
public XElement ParameterTemplate { get; set; }
}
Related
I do have a problem with serializing a ArrayList. Most propably I use wrong XML Attributes for it since I when I changed them it would not even serialize it and got errors like 'The type may not be used in this context.'
I need to use a non generic ArrayList. On adding [XmlArray("LineDetails")] made this code to run but the output is not correct, it should give me the LineDetails structure. Any idea how to fix this?
This is a part of a whole xml like Document > Header > LineCollection > LineDeatails.
The problem is only with this details if I use a standard string field it is ok but the range of the colletion if changing with every document.
[XmlType(TypeName = "LineCollection")]
public class LineCollection
{
public String LineCount{ get; set; }
// [XmlElement(ElementName = "LineDetails")]
[XmlArray("LineDetails")]
public ArrayList LineDetails{ get; set; }
}
public class LineDetails: ArrayList
{
public String LineNum{ get; set; }
public String ItemId{ get; set; }
public String ItemName{ get; set; }
//... only strings
}
public class Utf8StringWriter : StringWriter
{
public override Encoding Encoding => new UTF8Encoding(false);
}
public string Serialize()
{
// var xmlserializer = new XmlSerializer(this.GetType());
var xmlserializer = new XmlSerializer(this.GetType(), new Type[] { typeof(LineDetails) });
var Utf8StringWriter = new Utf8StringWriter();
var xns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
xns.Add(string.Empty, string.Empty);
using (var writer = XmlWriter.Create(Utf8StringWriter))
{
xmlserializer.Serialize(writer, this, xns);
return Utf8StringWriter.ToString();
}
}
And the incorrect output of this...
<LineColletion>
<LineDetails>
<anyType xmlns:p5="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" p5:type="ArrayOfAnyType"/>
<anyType xmlns:p5="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" p5:type="ArrayOfAnyType"/>
<anyType xmlns:p5="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" p5:type="ArrayOfAnyType"/>
</LineDetails>
</LineColletion>
it should be like this
<LineColletion>
<LineDetails>
<LineNum>1</LineNum>
<ItemId>Item_2321</ItemId>
<ItemName>TheItemName</ItemName>
</LineDetails>
<LineDetails>
<LineNum>2</LineNum>
<ItemId>Item_232100000</ItemId>
<ItemName>TheItemName0</ItemName>
</LineDetails>
<LineDetails>
<LineNum>3</LineNum>
<ItemId>Item_23217777</ItemId>
<ItemName>TheItemName7</ItemName>
</LineDetails>
</LineColletion>
Now the wrong xml looks like this...
<LineDetails>
<anyType xmlns:p5="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" p5:type="LineDetails">
<LineNum>1</LineNum>
<ItemId>Item_2321</ItemId>
<ItemName>TheItemName</ItemName>
</anyType>
<anyType xmlns:p5="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" p5:type="LineDetails">
<LineNum>2</LineNum>
<ItemId>Item_2321</ItemId>
<ItemName>TheItemName</ItemName>
</anyType>
</LineDetails>
You may generate the required XML by modifying your data model as follows:
[XmlType(TypeName = "LineColletion")] // Fixed: TypeName. But do you want LineColletion (misspelled) or LineCollection (correctly spelled)? Your XML shows LineColletion but your code used LineCollection.
public class LineCollection
{
public String LineCount{ get; set; }
[XmlElement("LineDetails", typeof(LineDetails))] // Fixed -- specify type(s) of items in the ArrayList.
public ArrayList LineDetails{ get; set; }
}
public class LineDetails // Fixed: removed inheritance from ArrayList.
{
public String LineNum{ get; set; }
public String ItemId{ get; set; }
public String ItemName{ get; set; }
//... only strings
}
Notes:
Your model makes LineDetails inherit from ArrayList. XmlSerializer will never serialize collection properties, it will only serialize collection items. In order to serialize it correctly, I removed the inheritance since you don't seem to be using it anyway.
If you really need LineDetails to inherit from ArrayList, you will need to implement IXmlSerializable or replace it collection with a DTO.
Implementing IXmlSerializable is tedious and error-prone. I don't recommend it.
Your LineDetails collection is serialized without an outer wrapper element. To make the serializer do this, apply XmlElementAttribute to the property.
ArrayList is an untyped collection, so you must inform XmlSerializer of the possible types it might contain. You have two options:
Assigning a specific type to a specific element name by setting XmlElementAttribute.Type (or XmlArrayItemAttribute.Type), OR
Adding xsi:type attributes by informing the serializer of additional included types. You are doing this by passing them into the constructor, which is why you are seeing the p5:type="LineDetails" attribute.
Since you don't want the attributes, you need to set the element name by setting the type like so:
[XmlElement("LineDetails", typeof(LineDetails))]
The XML element corresponding to your LineCollection is named <LineColletion>. Note that the spelling is inconsistent. You will need to set [XmlType(TypeName = "LineColletion")] to the name you actually want.
Demo fiddle here.
I have two different XML documents. Their structure is almost identical, but they have some different elements.
I would like to deserialize the incoming documents in to one class which is a superset of both classes. There is no need to ever serialize the class, I only need to deserialize the documents.
The XML document types have a different root element, lets say the root of the first is <CLASSA>and the other is <CLASSB>.
I am looking for something like this, where both <CLASSA> and <CLASSB> xml documents are mapped to ClassAandB:
[XmlRoot(ElementName="CLASSA,CLASSB")]
public class ClassAandB {
[XmlElement(ElementName="syntaxid")]
public Syntaxid Syntaxid{ get; set; }
[XmlElement(ElementName="email")]
public Email Email { get; set; }
[XmlElement(ElementName="envelope")]
public Envelope Envelope { get; set; }
[XmlElement(ElementName="header")]
public Header Header { get; set; }
}
I can then find out which of the two types it is by reading the Syntaxid property. This helps me because a lot of the processing is the same for both types.
Any suggestions how to do this?
Since the xml root element name might depend on the content of the xml document, you'll have to configure the XmlSerializer at runtime with this xml root element name to be used.
In this case, there's no need anymore to apply an XmlRootAttribute.
This can be done via the constructor overload accepting an XmlRootAttribute argument, via which you pass the root element name.
public XmlSerializer (Type type, System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute root);
You might know the root element name in front eg. depending on the source of the xml document, or you might discover it at runtime from the xml document itself.
The following from the example below shows how the xml root element name gets set.
String rootName = "CLASSA"; // "CLASSB"
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ClassAandB), new XmlRootAttribute(rootName));
An simplified example using an XmlReader as source and retrieving the root xml element name from the content.
public class ClassAandB
{
[XmlElement(ElementName="syntaxid")]
public String Syntaxid{ get; set; }
[XmlElement(ElementName="email")]
public String Email { get; set; }
[XmlElement(ElementName="header")]
public String Header { get; set; }
}
var classA = Deserialize(XmlReader.Create(
new StringReader("<CLASSA><syntaxid>A</syntaxid></CLASSA>"))
);
Console.WriteLine(classA.Syntaxid); // A
var classB = Deserialize(
XmlReader.Create(new StringReader("<CLASSB><syntaxid>B</syntaxid></CLASSB>"))
);
Console.WriteLine(classB.Syntaxid); // B
public static ClassAandB Deserialize(XmlReader reader)
{
reader.MoveToContent();
string rootName = reader.Name;
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ClassAandB),
new XmlRootAttribute(rootName)
);
var deserialized = serializer.Deserialize(reader) as ClassAandB;
return deserialized;
}
I suggest you to remove XmlRoot attribute and use:
var doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("file.xml");
XmlElement root = xmlDoc.DocumentElement;
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ClassAandB), new XmlRootAttribute(root.ToString()));
I have XML Serializable class with property Name
[Serializable]
public class Item
{
[XmlElement("name")]
public string Name { get; set; }
}
and I want it to be able to deserialize XML file that I have in two ways:
<item>
<name>Name</name>
</item>
and
<item>
<name value="Name" />
</item>
The first works fine but what should I do to be able to deserialize the second also with the same class?
XML Serialization attributes work both with serialization and deserialization. If we'll assume that it might be possible to use attributes for deserializing instance of Item from two different xml structures, then how serialization should work - should it serialize instance name to element value, or to attribute? Or to both? That's why you cannot deserialize two different xml structures into single class. Use two different classes or deserialize it manually without usage of XML Serialization attributes.
I found another way to solve my problem using only one class maybe someone will find this useful
[Serializable]
public class Item
{
[XmlElement("name")]
public NameElement NameElement { get; set; }
}
public class NameElement
{
[XmlAttribute("value")]
public string Value { get; set; }
[XmlText]
public string Text { get; set; }
[XmlIgnore]
public string Name
{
get { return String.IsNullOrEmpty(this.Value) ? this.Text : this.Value; }
set { this.Value = value; }
}
}
Maybe it's not super elegant but it works in both cases and uses the same class.
Since you have mentioned that XML data is coming from external sources, so obviously you don't have control over that.
Therefore you can follow any of the option as below:
Create separate class per XML data structure, because as far I know there is no way to control XML Deserialization when using XmlSerializer
You can use XDocument to read the XML by self, to overcome this limitation.
If going by second idea, I have created small Console Application to demonstrate that.
Main piece of code is as below:
MemoryStream xmlStream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xmlData));
XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(xmlStream);
var records = from record in doc.Descendants("item").Descendants()
select new Item(!record.IsEmpty ? record.Value : record.Attribute("value").Value);
Here I'm reading the element using LinqToXml and checking if the element is not empty, i.e. Value is not blank, then use Value otherwise read the value from element's Attribute.
Console application (Complete code):
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml.Linq;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
namespace Console.TestApp
{
class Program
{
static string xmltypeFirst = #"<item>
<name>John</name>
</item>";
static string xmltypeSecond = #"<item>
<name value='Smith' />
</item>";
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var data = xmltypeFirst;
var result = Deserialize(data).ToList();
Console.WriteLine("Name: " + result[0].Name);
data = xmltypeSecond;
result = Deserialize(data).ToList();
Console.WriteLine("Name: " + result[0].Name);
Console.WriteLine("Press any to key to exit..");
Console.ReadLine();
}
private static IEnumerable<Item> Deserialize(string xmlData)
{
MemoryStream xmlStream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xmlData));
XDocument doc = XDocument.Load(xmlStream);
var records = from record in doc.Descendants("item").Descendants()
select new Item(!record.IsEmpty ? record.Value : record.Attribute("value").Value);
return records;
}
}
[Serializable]
public class Item
{
public Item(string name)
{
this.Name = name;
}
[XmlElement("name")]
public string Name { get; set; }
}
}
Note: To run this you will need to add reference to System.Xml.Linq.dll in your project.
Reference: here
I am trying to Deserialize the following XML:
<Test><string name="Name">Test name</string><string name="Description">Some fake description.</string></Test>
Into the following class.
[XmlRoot("Test")]
public class Test
{
[XmlElement("string")]
public string Name;
[XmlElement("string")]
public string Description;
}
Using the code I am doing it with.
var xml = #"<Test><string name=""Name"">Test name</string><string name=""Description"">Some fake description.</string></Test>";
XmlReader reader = new XmlTextReader(new StringReader(xml));
XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Test));
serializer.Deserialize(reader);
When I run this I get an InvalidOperationException with the message
There was an error reflecting type 'Test'.
If I comment out the Description property, it works. I can get the attribute value or the text, but I can't get just the XmlText with the element is string and the "name" Attribute has a specific value.
Is this even possible without using LINQ?
As per my comment:
Certainly won't be able to do it without changing something. You're
telling .NET that Description is an element when it's an attribute of
the 'string' element. Use LINQ
Here is an example of the LINQ, it's quite straightforward to extend and decouples your XML from your class (which is often a good thing!).
var xml = #"<Test><string name=""Name"">Test name</string><string name=""Description"">Some fake description.</string></Test>";
var xdoc = XDocument.Parse(xml);
var output = from test in xdoc.Elements("Test")
let strings = test.Elements("string").ToDictionary(e => e.Attribute("name").Value, e => e.Value)
select new Test () { Name = strings["Name"],
Description = strings["Description"] };
The reason is that you are not using XmlElement as intended, the element name "string" must be unique the class. The "name" attribute is not taken into account.
So, in summary, it is not possible to deserialize that xml document automatically, you would need to implement the deserialization method by yourself.
For that you would need:
public class Foo {
[XmlAttribute("name")]
public string Name {get;set;}
[XmlText]
public string Value {get;set;}
}
Then, in the parent type:
[XmlRoot("Test")]
public class Test
{
[XmlElement("string")]
public List<Foo> Items {get;set;}
}
This it the only way you can process that shape XML unless you use IXmlSerializable (very hard).
I have an XML string like this:
<Summary>Foo</Summary><Description>Bar</Description>
I want to read this into a class object:
class Foobar()
{
string Summary {get;set;}
string Description {get;set;}
}
I tried using XmlTextReader, but it throws an exception that no root element was found. This is what I tried:
using (XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(new StringReader(comment)))
{
while (reader.Read())
//do something here
}
I also tried deserializing it directly into an object like this:
[XmlTypeAttribute]
public class Foobar
{
[XmlElementAttribute("Summary")]
public string Summary { get; set; }
[XmlElementAttribute("Description")]
public string Description { get; set; }
}
This fails as well because I cannot define a [XmlRootElement] for the class Foobar, since there is no root element.
Define a root element
<root>
<Summary>Foo</Summary>
<Description>Bar</Desciption>
</root>
You need to set root element for that your xaml would be
<root>
<Summary>Foo</Summary><Description>Bar</Description>
</root>
For Rootelement in XMLSeralizatoion : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.xml.serialization.xmlrootattribute.aspx
The easiest way is probably to manually add a root element.
string xml = "<root>" + comment + "</root>";
Then you can parse it with whichever method you want.
Use a constructor form that allows for XMLFragments (chunks of XML that could be valid if put into a single element, but which are not so-rooted):
using (XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(comment, XmlNodeType.Element, null))
{
while (reader.Read())
//do something here
}
Better yet, use Create(), which gives more flexibility still.