We Keep Coding

xmlserialize argumentexception (ArgumentException: Could not cast or convert from System.String to System.Collections.Generic.List`1[System.String].)

Below piece of code is failing and throwing ArgumentException
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string xml = "<root><SourcePatient><Communication>HP:6055550120</Communication></SourcePatient></root>";
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml(xml);
var serializedString = JsonConvert.SerializeXmlNode(doc, Newtonsoft.Json.Formatting.None,true);
var deserialise = serializedString.ToObject<SampleModel>();
}
Models are,
public class SampleModel
{
public SourcePatientModel SourcePatient { get; set; }
}
public class SourcePatientModel
{
public List<string> Communication { get; set; }
}
How to deserialize this? Sometimes Communication node from xml string will have multiple entries

Your current xml is only a single entry
<Communication>HP:6055550120</Communication>
Change your xml input
<Communication><Entry>HP:6055550120</Entry></Communication>
So later when you get multiple entries, they can be processed
<Communication><Entry>HP:6055550120</Entry><Entry>HP:xxxxxxxxx</Entry></Communication>
Your class needs tweaked a bit
if a string [] is acceptable
[XmlArray(ElementName = "Communication")]
[XmlArrayItem(ElementName = "Entry")]
public string[] comm_list // Whatever name you want here
{
get; set;
}
// if you want a list here
// also if your going to do this, realize it creates a new list every time you use it, not the best. (bad practice)
List<string> Communication
{
get => new List<string>(comm_list );
}
otherwise it gets a little complicated
[XmlRoot(ElementName="Communication")]
public class Communication // element name by def
{
[XmlElement(ElementName="Entry")]
public List<string> entry { get; set; }
}
Another possibility, not sure how your multiple entries come in.
If multiple entries look like the following
<Communication>HP:6055550120, HP:7055550120</Communication>
Then you cant have a direct list,
public class SourcePatientModel
{
public string Communication { get; set; }
// which again this creates a list everytime, its better to change your xml to match a tag name for each entry
[XmlIgnore]
public List<string> CommunicationValues { get => Communication.Split(',').ToList();
}
Also this is just typed up code, there may be some typos or compile errors

First I parsed xml to the valid model, then you can convert to json if needed
using (TextReader sr = new StringReader(xml))
{
XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(SampleModel));
var schema = (SampleModel)serializer.Deserialize(sr);
}
[Serializable, XmlRoot("root")]
public class SampleModel
{
public SourcePatientModel SourcePatient { get; set; }
}
public class SourcePatientModel
{
[XmlElement("Communication")]
public List<string> Communication { get; set; }
}

I modified your classes to include some XML serialization attributes. (More on how to figure those out later - the short version is that you don't have to figure it out.)
[XmlRoot(ElementName = "SourcePatient")]
public class SourcePatientModel
{
[XmlElement(ElementName = "Communication")]
public List<string> Communication { get; set; }
}
[XmlRoot(ElementName = "root")]
public class SampleModel
{
[XmlElement(ElementName = "SourcePatient")]
public SourcePatientModel SourcePatientModel { get; set; }
}
...and this code deserializes it:
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(SampleModel));
using var stringReader = new StringReader(xmlString);
SampleModel deserialized = (SampleModel) serializer.Deserialize(stringReader);
Here's a unit test to make sure a test XML string is deserialized with a list of strings as expected. A unit test is a little easier to run and repeat than a console app. Using them makes writing code a lot easier.
[Test]
public void DeserializationTest()
{
string xmlString = #"
<root>
<SourcePatient>
<Communication>A</Communication>
<Communication>B</Communication>
</SourcePatient>
</root>";
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(SampleModel));
using var stringReader = new StringReader(xmlString);
SampleModel deserialized = (SampleModel) serializer.Deserialize(stringReader);
Assert.AreEqual(2, deserialized.SourcePatientModel.Communication.Count);
}
Here's a key takeaway: You don't need to memorize XML serialization attributes. I don't bother because I find them confusing. Instead, google "XML to Csharp" and you'll find sites like this one. I pasted your XML into that site and let it generate the classes for me. (Then I renamed them so that they matched your question.)
But be sure that you include enough sample data in your XML so that it can generate the classes for you. I made sure there were two Communication elements so it would create a List<string> in the generated class.
Sites like that might not work for extremely complicated XML, but they work for most scenarios, and it's much easier than figuring out how to write the classes ourselves.

Nested list of constant strings in C#

Any way I can store this data in a clean way, and preferably use variable names instead of strings as keys to avoid typos? E.g. UNITED_STATES = "201" instead of "United States" = "201".
{
"countries": {
"id": "123",
"data" {
"United States": "201"
"Canada": "202",
}
},
"departments": { ... }
}
I started with KeyValuePairs like this, but nesting data in here seems like a bad idea.
private static readonly List<KeyValuePair<string, string>> CategoryIds = new List<KeyValuePair<string, string>>
{
new KeyValuePair<string, string>("Countries", "123"),
new KeyValuePair<string, string>("Departments", "124")
};

Two approaches to deserialize JSON here.
Strong typing approach (good approach):
public class A
{
public B Countries {get;set;}
public C Departments {get;set;}
}
public class B
{
public int Id {get;set;}
public D Data {get;set;}
}
...
var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<A>(json);
You create DTO objects manually and just expect them to deserialize successfully.
Dynamic approach (bad but sometimes acceptable approach):
dynamic result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(json);
var data = result.countries.data;
You create some "bag of things" (dynamic is basically a bunch of hierarchical Dictionary wrapped into syntax sugar cane), don't really care about all of them, and just want some of its properties.

Maybe you could use json.net JObject?
It allows you to work with dynamic objects and convert them to and from json strings
Documentation for JObject
https://www.newtonsoft.com/json/help/html/QueryingLINQtoJSON.htm
Nuget:
https://www.nuget.org/packages/Newtonsoft.Json/

You can use a dictionary<k,v> for this purpose along with a enum like below probably
enum CountryVal
{
UnitesStates,
Canada
}
With a model structure like
public class Countries
{
public string id { get; set; }
public Dictionary<CountryVal, int> Data { get; set; }
}
public class Departments
{
public string id { get; set; }
}
public class RootObject
{
public Countries countries { get; set; }
public Departments departments { get; set; }
}

You can create a public class as below and you can then call country value like CountriesConstants.UNITED_STATES in your code and if you need to change the value just update it in CountriesConstants class
public class CountriesConstants
{
public const string UNITED_STATES = "201";
public const string Canada = "202";
//Add More
}

NJsonSchema is a library that will enable you to generate code in csharp as well as few other languages from a standard json schema. It is very powerful and configurable, and can pave most of the way on your behalf. But as i said it will expect an standard json schema as for the source of generation.
var schema = NJsonSchema.JsonSchema4.FromFileAsync(filename);
var generator = new CSharpGenerator(schema.Result);
var file = generator.GenerateFile();
Above is the minimum amount of code required to generate csharp classes from json schema. you can define settings and pass to the generator function to service your special needs of course.
github page for this library:
NJsonSchema github
Nuget page:
NJsonSchema Nuget

Protobuf-net deserializing after defining inheritance

I'm using protobuf-net version 2.0.0.640 to serialize some data as shown below.
[ProtoContract(ImplicitFields = ImplicitFields.AllFields)]
public interface ITestMessage
{
}
[ProtoContract(ImplicitFields = ImplicitFields.AllFields)]
public class MyOrder : ITestMessage
{
public int Amount { get; set; }
}
[ProtoContract(ImplicitFields = ImplicitFields.AllFields)]
public class MyOrderWrapper
{
public MyOrder Order { get; set; }
}
[TestMethod]
public void TestOrderSerialize()
{
var order = new MyOrder() {Amount = 10};
var orderWrapper = new MyOrderWrapper() { Order = order };
using (var file = File.Create("C:\\temp\\order.bin"))
{
Serializer.Serialize<MyOrderWrapper>(file, orderWrapper);
}
}
Now, If I declare an inheritance dependency between 'ITestMessage' & 'MyOrder' via code using:
RuntimeTypeModel.Default[typeof(ITestMessage)].AddSubType(2, typeof(MyOrder));
I get the following error when trying to deserialize my prevously saved data.
"No parameterless constructor found for ITestMessage".
[TestMethod]
public void TestOrderDeserialize()
{
RuntimeTypeModel.Default[typeof(ITestMessage)].AddSubType(2, typeof(MyOrder));
MyOrderWrapper orderWrapper;
using (var file = File.OpenRead("C:\\temp\\order.bin"))
{
orderWrapper = Serializer.Deserialize<MyOrderWrapper>(file);
}
}
Can someone please explain why this would happen when 'MyOrderWrapper' does not reference anything higher than 'MyOrder' in the inheritance hirarchy.
Also, why it works when I explictly include '[ProtoInclude(2, typeof(MyOrder))]' on 'ITestMessage'
Thanks

Basically, that is a breaking change as far as the serializer is concerned - at the wire layer, neither "classes" nor "interfaces" exist, so in terms of storage, this is akin to changing the base-type of the class; when serializing, the root type was MyOrder - and during deserialization the root type is ITestMessage. This will not make it happy.
Basically: you can't do that.

Serializing object to XML to get list of tags named like field value

I have 2 classes:
public class LocalizationEntry
{
public List<TranslationPair> Translations
{
get;
set;
}
}
public class TranslationPair
{
public string Language
{
get;
set;
}
public string Translation
{
get;
set;
}
}
Is it possible to get such a XML using standard serializer?
<LocalizationEntry>
<Translations>
<EN>apple<EN>
<PL>jabłko<PL>
<DE>apfel<DE>
</Translations>
</LocalizationEntry>
I was thinking about something like XmlArrayItem(ElementName=this.Language) attribute but of course this construction is illegal apart from that attribute value cannot be determined in runtime.
Thanks for any help. Surely I can use other structure, but I'm curious is it possible.

To customise the element names is a pain; I would forget about XmlSerializer here, as you'd have to use IXmlSerializable which is a royal pain. I'd use XElement instead:
var source = new LocalizationEntry {
Translations = new List<TranslationPair> {
new TranslationPair {Language="EN", Translation="apple"},
new TranslationPair {Language="PL", Translation="jabłko"},
new TranslationPair {Language="DE", Translation="apfel"},
}
};
var el = new XElement("LocalizationEntry",
new XElement("Translations",
from pair in source.Translations
select new XElement(pair.Language, pair.Translation)));
var xml = el.ToString();

enter link description hereUse the XMLSerializer Object in the .NET Framework
Remember to put the Serializable Attribute on the Class Name
click this Link, i cant work out how to Add the Name of the URL sorry

Serializing Name/Value Pairs in a Custom Object via Web Service

This is a very complicated question concerning how to serialize data via a web service call, when the data is not-strongly typed. I'll try to lay it out as best possible.
Sample Storage Object:
[Serializable]
public class StorageObject {
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Birthday { get; set; }
public List<NameValuePairs> OtherInfo { get; set; }
}
[Serializable]
public class NameValuePairs {
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Value { get; set; }
}
Sample Use:
[WebMethod]
public List<StorageObject> GetStorageObjects() {
List<StorageObject> o = new List<StorageObject>() {
new StorageObject() {
Name = "Matthew",
Birthday = "Jan 1st, 2008",
OtherInfo = new List<NameValuePairs>() {
new NameValuePairs() { Name = "Hobbies", Value = "Programming" },
new NameValuePairs() { Name = "Website", Value = "Stackoverflow.com" }
}
},
new StorageObject() {
Name = "Joe",
Birthday = "Jan 10th, 2008",
OtherInfo = new List<NameValuePairs>() {
new NameValuePairs() { Name = "Hobbies", Value = "Programming" },
new NameValuePairs() { Name = "Website", Value = "Stackoverflow.com" }
}
}
};
return o;
}
Return Value from Web Service:
<StorageObject>
<Name>Matthew</Name>
<Birthday>Jan 1st, 2008</Birthday>
<OtherInfo>
<NameValuePairs>
<Name>Hobbies</Name>
<Value>Programming</Value>
</NameValuePairs>
<NameValuePairs>
<Name>Website</Name>
<Value>Stackoverflow.com</Value>
</NameValuePairs>
</OtherInfo>
</StorageObject>
What I want:
<OtherInfo>
<Hobbies>Programming</Hobbies>
<Website>Stackoverflow.com</Website>
</OtherInfo>
The Reason & Other Stuff:
First, I'm sorry for the length of the post, but I wanted to give reproducible code as well.
I want it in this format, because I'm consuming the web services from PHP. I want to easily go:
// THIS IS IMPORANT
In PHP => "$Result["StorageObject"]["OtherInfo"]["Hobbies"]".
If it's in the other format, then there would be no way for me to accomplish that, at all. Additionally, in C# if I am consuming the service, I would also like to be able to do the following:
// THIS IS IMPORANT
In C# => var m = ServiceResult[0].OtherInfo["Hobbies"];
Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to accomplish this. I was able to get it this way, by building a custom Dictionary that implemented IXmlSerializer (see StackOverflow: IXmlSerializer Dictionary), however, it blew the WSDL schema out of the water. It's also much too complicated, and produced horrible results in my WinFormsTester application!
Is there any way to accomplish this ? What type of objects do I need to create ? Is there any way to do this /other than by making a strongly typed collection/ ? Obviously, if I make it strongly typed like this:
public class OtherInfo {
public string Hobbies { get; set; }
public string FavoriteWebsite { get; set; }
}
Then it would work perfectly, I would have no WSDL issues, I would be able to easily access it from PHP, and C# (.OtherInfo.Hobbies).
However, I would completely lose the point of NVP's, in that I would have to know in advance what the list is, and it would be unchangeable.. say, from a Database.
Thanks everyone!! I hope we're able to come up with some sort of solution to this. Here's are the requirements again:
WSDL schema should not break
Name value pairs (NVP's) should be serialized into attribute format
Should be easy to access NVP's in PHP by name ["Hobbies"]
Should be easy to access in C# (and be compatible with it's Proxy generator)
Be easily serializable
Not require me to strongly type the data
Now, I am /completely/ open to input on a better/different way to do this. I'm storing some relatively "static" information (like Name), and a bunch of pieces of data. If there's a better way, I'd love to hear it.

This is like dynamic properties for a object.
C# is not quite a dynamic language unlike javascript or maybe PHP can parse the object properties on the fly. The following two methods are what I can think of. The second one might fit into your requirements.
The KISS Way
The Keep It Simple Stupid way
public class StorageObject {
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Birthday { get; set; }
public List<string> OtherInfo { get; set; }
}
You can have name value pairs which is separated by '|'
OtherInfo = {"Hobbies|Programming", "Website|Stackoverflow.com"}
Serialized forms
<StorageObject>
<Name>Matthew</Name>
<Birthday>Jan 1st, 2008</Birthday>
<OtherInfo>
<string>Hobbies|Programming</string>
<string>Website|Stackoverflow.com</string>
</OtherInfo>
</StorageObject>
The Dynamic Way in C#
Make the name value pair part become an XML element so that you can build it dynamically.
public class StorageObject {
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Birthday { get; set; }
public XElement OtherInfo { get; set; } // XmlElement for dot net 2
}
You can easily build up OtherInfo object as element centric
e.g.
XElement OtherInfo = new XElement("OtherInfo");
OtherInfo.Add( ..Hobbies xelement & text value..);
OtherInfo.Add( ..WebSite xelement & text value..);
The serialized form will be
<OtherInfo>
<Hobbies>Programming</Hobbies>
<Website>Stackoverflow.com</Website>
</OtherInfo>
or build it as attribute centric
XElement OtherInfo = new XElement("OtherInfo");
OtherInfo.Add( ..nvp xattribute Hobbies & value..);
OtherInfo.Add( ..nvp xattribute WebSite & value..);
<OtherInfo>
<nvp n="Hobbies" v="Programming" />
<nvp n="Website" v="Stackoverflow.com" />
</OtherInfo>
For any dynamic language, it can access to the properties directly.
For the rest, they can access the value by read the XML. Reading XML is well supported by most of framework.

This is what I've settled on.
Class Structure:
public class StorageObject {
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Birthday { get; set; }
[XmlAnyElement("Info")] // this prevents double-nodes in the XML
public XElement OtherInfo { get; set; }
}
Usage:
StorageObject o = new StorageObject();
o.OtherInfo.Add(new XElement("Hobbies","Programming");
o.OtherInfo.Add(new XElement("Website","Stackoverflow.com");
Output:
<Info>
<Hobbies>Programming</Hobbies>
<Website>Stackoverflow.com</Website>
</Info>
I would like to thank everyone for their assistance, I really appreciate the help and ideas.

As a completely different take on this, why not think about doing it completely differently. Have one web service method to return the serialized storage object, minus the OtherInfo and another method to return the list of properties (keys) for OtherInfo, and a third to return the list of values for any key. Granted, it will take more round trips to the web service if you want all of the data, but the solution will be much simpler and more flexible.
[Serializable]
public class StorageObject {
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Birthday { get; set; }
[Nonserializable]
public Dictionary<string,List<string>> OtherInfo { get; set; }
}
[WebMethod]
public List<StorageObject> GetStorageObjects() {
// returns list of storage objects from persistent storage or cache
}
[WebMethod]
public List<string> GetStorageObjectAttributes( string name )
{
// find storage object, sObj
return sObj.Keys.ToList();
}
[WebMethod]
public List<string> GetStorageObjectAtributeValues( sting name, string attribute )
{
// find storage object, sObj
return sObj[attribute];
}

Have a look into the System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializerAssemblyAttribute attribute. This lets you specify a custom class-level serializer. You'll be able to spit out whatever XML you like.
A quick way to get up to speed on these is to use sgen.exe to generate one and have a peek at it with Reflector.
-Oisin

I'm not sure this would solve your problem (it would in C#, but maybe not in PHP), but try using Dictionary<string,List<string>> OtherInfo instead of List<NameValuePairs>. Then "Hobbies" and "Websites" would be your keys and the values would be the list of hobbies or web sites. I'm not sure how it would serialize, though.
You would be able to reference the lists of hobbies as:
List<string> hobbies = storageObject.OtherInfo["Hobbies"];
[EDIT] See here for a generic XML serializable dictionary. This derived class is the one you would need to use instead of generic Dictionary.