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How can we have dynamic xml element name in C# class file?

This is my current XML Response tag
<Response_Data_1234 diffgr:id="Response_Data_1234" msdata:rowOrder="0" diffgr:hasChanges="inserted">
<Status>File received.</Status>
<Time>2022-01-25T09:44:15.73+08:00</Time>
<Location>HKG</Location>
</Response_Data_1234>
the number 1234 in <Response_Data_1234> is a Response Data id, which will be dynamic depending on the request.
Could someone please me create a C# class in this scenario so that I can map the response directly to the class. Thanks in advance

Actually you should not have any unique identifier attached to XML element name. It should be added as attribute.
To answer your question:
There is no direct class attribute to ignore class name while deserialisation of xml string to object.
Option1 (better): Create mapper extension method for XNode to class attribute mapping and reuse it.
Option2:
If your xml string is small you can try to update name of root element and use it to deserialise.
sample code:
var responseDataXDoc = XDocument.Parse(xml);
responseDataXDoc.Root.Name = "ResponseData";
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ResponseData));
var responseData = serializer.Deserialize(new StringReader(responseDataXDoc.ToString(SaveOptions.DisableFormatting)));

With Cinchoo ETL - an open source library, you can deserialize such xml easily as below
using (var r = ChoXmlReader<ResponseData>.LoadText(xml)
.WithXPath("//")
.WithXmlNamespace("diffgr", "")
.WithXmlNamespace("msdata", "")
)
{
var rec = r.FirstOrDefault();
rec.Print();
}
public class ResponseData
{
public string Status { get; set; }
public DateTime Time { get; set; }
public string Location { get; set; }
}
Sample fiddle: https://dotnetfiddle.net/HOOPOg

How to find nodes in an XML

I have loaded the following XML file using xml.Load("myfile.xml"); where xml is of type XmlDocument:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<DTE xmlns="http://www.sii.cl/SiiDte" version="1.0">
<Documento ID="E000000005T033F0114525415">
<Encabezado>
<IdDoc>
<TipoDTE>33</TipoDTE>
<Folio>114525415</Folio>
<FchEmis>2021-11-02</FchEmis>
<FmaPago>1</FmaPago>
<FchVenc>2021-11-02</FchVenc>
</IdDoc>
</Encabezado>
</Documento>
</DTE>
How can I get Folionode?
I have tried with:
xml.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("/DTE/Documento/Encabezado/IdDoc/Folio");
xml.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("DTE/Documento/Encabezado/IdDoc/Folio")
xml.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("//DTE/Documento/Encabezado/IdDoc/Folio");
xml.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("/Documento/Encabezado/IdDoc/Folio");
xml.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("Documento/Encabezado/IdDoc/Folio");
xml.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("/Encabezado/IdDoc/Folio");
xml.DocumentElement.SelectNodes("/DTE/Documento/Encabezado/IdDoc/Folio")
when I debug xml.DocumentElement I see that the element is DTE so I think xml.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode("Documento/Encabezado/IdDoc/Folio") should do it.
When I get xml.DocumentElement.FirstChild I get Documento node.
With xml.DocumentElement.FirstChild.FirstChild I get Encabezado node.
With xml.DocumentElement.FirstChild.FirstChild.FirstChild I get IdDoc node.
If I use xml.DocumentElement.FirstChild.FirstChild.FirstChild.SelectSingleNode("Folio"), returned value is null.
If I use xml.DocumentElement.FirstChild.FirstChild.FirstChild.ChildNodes, I get the 5 elements.
Then I could use xml.DocumentElement.FirstChild.FirstChild.FirstChild.ChildNodes[1].InnerText to get Folio value.
I can traverse the XML but, how can I do it to get the element directly?
Thanks
Jaime

It is better to use LINQ to XML API for your task. It is available in the .Net Framework since 2007.
The provided XML has a default namespace. It needs to be declared and used, otherwise it is imposable to find any XML element.
c#
void Main()
{
const string filename = #"e:\Temp\jstuardo.xml";
XDocument xdoc = XDocument.Load(filename);
XNamespace ns = xdoc.Root.GetDefaultNamespace();
string Folio = xdoc.Descendants(ns + "Folio")
.FirstOrDefault()?.Value;
Console.WriteLine("Folio='{0}'", Folio);
}
Output
Folio='114525415'

You can try to use the Xpath like below:
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load("myfile.xml");
var node= doc.SelectSingleNode("Documento/Encabezado/IdDoc/[Folio='"114525415"']");

There are few ways to make things up with your issue.
So, we have our XML:
const string MyXML = #"<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""ISO-8859-1""?>
<DTE xmlns=""http://www.sii.cl/SiiDte"" version=""1.0"">
<Documento ID=""E000000005T033F0114525415"">
<Encabezado>
<IdDoc>
<TipoDTE>33</TipoDTE>
<Folio>114525415</Folio>
<FchEmis>2021-11-02</FchEmis>
<FmaPago>1</FmaPago>
<FchVenc>2021-11-02</FchVenc>
</IdDoc>
</Encabezado>
</Documento>
</DTE>";
And we need to get Folio node (exactly node, not just value). We can use:
XmlNamespaceManager:
to find descendant node(s) through XML namespace (xmlns) alias in XPath:
// Creating our XmlDocument instance
var xmlDocument = new XmlDocument();
xmlDocument.LoadXml(MyXML);
// Initializing XmlNamespaceManager and providing our xmlns with 'SiiDte' alias:
var xmlNamespaceManager = new XmlNamespaceManager(xmlDocument.NameTable);
xmlNamespaceManager.AddNamespace("SiiDte", "http://www.sii.cl/SiiDte");
// Declaring our simple shiny XPath:
var xPath = "descendant::SiiDte:Folio";
// If we need single (first) element:
var folio = xmlDocument.DocumentElement.SelectSingleNode(xPath, xmlNamespaceManager);
// If we need all Folios:
var folios = xmlDocument.DocumentElement.SelectNodes(xPath, xmlNamespaceManager);
XDocument and its Descendants:
from System.Xml.Linq namespace and its XDocument class, to find descendant node(s) just by their tag name <Folio>:
// If we need single (first) element:
var folio = XDocument.Parse(MyXML)
.Descendants()
.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Name.LocalName == "Folio");
// Add System.Linq using to access FirstOrDefault extension method
// If we need all Folios - just replacing FirstOrDefault with Where extension method:
var folios = XDocument.Parse(MyXML)
.Descendants()
.Where(x => x.Name.LocalName == "Folio"); // and .ToList() if you need
// Or we can use also our XML namespace to filter Descendants:
var ns = (XNamespace)"http://www.sii.cl/SiiDte";
var folios = XDocument.Parse(MyXML).Descendants(ns + "Folio");
Deserialization:
to operate not with XML or nodes, but with some class (e.g. DTE), which represents your XML schema. I'm not sure that I totally understand your XML structure, but anyway as example it could be used.
So we create our classes, which are representation of our XML:
[Serializable, XmlRoot(ElementName = nameof(DTE), Namespace = "http://www.sii.cl/SiiDte")]
public class DTE
{
[XmlAttribute("version")]
public string Version { get; set; }
[XmlElement(nameof(Documento))]
public List<Documento> Documentacion { get; set; }
}
[Serializable]
public class Documento
{
[XmlAttribute(nameof(ID))]
public string ID { get; set; }
[XmlElement(nameof(Encabezado))]
public Encabezado Encabezado { get; set; }
}
[Serializable]
public class Encabezado
{
[XmlElement(nameof(IdDoc))]
public IDDoc IdDoc { get; set; }
}
[Serializable]
public class IDDoc
{
[XmlElement(nameof(TipoDTE))]
public int TipoDTE { get; set; }
[XmlElement(nameof(Folio))]
public long Folio { get; set; }
[XmlElement(nameof(FchEmis))]
public DateTime FchEmis { get; set; }
[XmlElement(nameof(FmaPago))]
public int FmaPago { get; set; }
[XmlElement(nameof(FchVenc))]
public DateTime FchVenc { get; set; }
}
Now we can easily create our DTE object with XmlSerializer class and its Deserialize method:
// Declaring our DTE object
var dte = (DTE)null;​
using (var reader = new StringReader(MyXML))
{
dte = (DTE)new XmlSerializer(typeof(DTE)).Deserialize(reader);
}
Now we can get Folio as property of IdDoc class, which is property of Encabezado class, which in a turn is property of Documento class. Keeping in mind possible null result turns us to use, for example, null-propagation:
var folio = dte?.Documentacion.FirstOrDefault()?.Encabezado?.IdDoc?.Folio;
As Documentacion is a List<Documento> - we use again FirstOrDefault (also may be used ElementAtOrDefault(0)) to "imitate" SelectSingleNode. And for all Folios we can use Select (also with mull-propagation):
var folios = dte?.Documentacion.Select(x => x?.Encabezado?.IdDoc?.Folio);
Sure, we can edit properties if we want or add new:
// Edit
if (dte?.Documentacion.FirstOrDefault() is Documento documento)
documento.Encabezado.IdDoc.Folio = 112233445566;
// or create and add new
var newDocumento = new Documento
{
ID = "SomeID",
Encabezado = new Encabezado
{
IdDoc = new IDDoc
{
TipoDTE = 123,
Folio = 112233445566,
FmaPago = 1,
FchEmis = DateTime.Now,
FchVenc = DateTime.Now.AddDays(1)
}
}
};
dte.Documentacion.Add(newDocumento);
And finally save back to XML file using Serialization. Here became usable our class and properties attributes (e.g. [Serializable], [XmlElement] etc), which specifies how each property should be named or represented in XML:
using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create("My.xml",
new XmlWriterSettings
{
Encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("ISO-8859-1"),
Indent = true
}))
{
// We remove default XSI, XSD namespaces and leave only our custom:
var xmlSerializerNamespaces = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
xmlSerializerNamespaces.Add("", "http://www.sii.cl/SiiDte");
// and saving our DTE object to XML file.
xmlSerializer.Serialize(xmlWriter, dte, xmlSerializerNamespaces);
}
Remarks
Of course, parse of XML strings could be replaces with loading XML files (by FileStreams) if needed. And of course you can edit DTE (and child) classes with other properties and mark them as XML attributes or XML elements or making collections with XmlArray and XmlArrayItem attributes - whatever, depending on your needs. Also notice about null XML nodes or its values and take care about it with, for example, Nullable<T> (e.g. long?, DateTime?), IsNullable property of XML attributes and some kind of value validation at property setter:
private long _folio;
[XmlElement(nameof(Folio), IsNullable = true)]
public long? Folio
{
get => _folio;
set => _folio = value ?? 0L; // Null-coalescing with default fallback value of 0L
}
Hope it would be helpful for your future purposes.

How to parse xml with multiple xmlns attribute in c#?

I have an xml beginning like above
<Invoice
xsi:schemaLocation="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2../xsdrt/maindoc/UBL-Invoice-2.1.xsd"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:xades="http://uri.etsi.org/01903/v1.3.2#"
xmlns:ext="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonExtensionComponents-2"
xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"
xmlns:cbc="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonBasicComponents-2"
xmlns:cac="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonAggregateComponents-2"
xmlns="urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2">
<cbc:UBLVersionID>2.1</cbc:UBLVersionID>
<cbc:CustomizationID>TR1.2</cbc:CustomizationID>
<cbc:ProfileID>TEMELFATURA</cbc:ProfileID>
<cbc:ID>ALP2018000007216</cbc:ID>
<!-- ... -->
and I try to parse the xml with method like that
public static T FromXml<T>(string xmlString)
{
StringReader xmlReader = new StringReader(xmlString);
XmlSerializer deserializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
return (T)deserializer.Deserialize(xmlReader);
}
and my xml model is like above
[Serializable]
[XmlRoot(
Namespace = "urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2",
ElementName = "Invoice",
DataType = "string",
IsNullable = true)]
public class Invoice
{
public string CustomizationID { get; set; }
// ...
}
However, I cannot parse the xml document, all values come null. I think that it is because of multiple xmlns attribute in Invoice tag. I couldnt solve the problem.

The default namespace of the document is urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2 which you have correctly put in the XmlRoot, but the child elements such as UBLVersionID are prefixed with cbc, which is a different namespace. You have to put that namespace against the property to let the serializer know that's what it is.
For example:
[Serializable]
[XmlRoot(
Namespace = "urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:Invoice-2",
ElementName = "Invoice",
DataType = "string",
IsNullable = true)]
public class Invoice
{
[XmlElement(Namespace = "urn:oasis:names:specification:ubl:schema:xsd:CommonBasicComponents-2")]
public string CustomizationID { get; set; }
// ...
}
In Visual Studio, you can use Edit > Paste Special > Paste Xml As Classes to see how to decorate a class to match your XML if you're in doubt.

DataContract deserialize XML

I have this XML:
<ResultData xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/TsmApi.Logic.BusinesEntities"
xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Information>Schedule added.</Information>
<Success>true</Success>
</ResultData>
Is there a way to get as result only that:
<ResultData>
<Information>Sched added.</Information>
<Success>true</Success>
</ResultData>
Without all the other things from the example below?
Because when I try to get the object of the result string shown below, it doesn't work.
Datacontract XML serialization
The code I try to use is:
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ResultData));
var rdr = new StringReader(xmlResultString);
var resultingMessage = (ResultData)serializer.Deserialize(rdr);
And on the last row it shows me error:
An unhandled exception of type 'System.InvalidOperationException' occurred in System.Xml.dll
Additional information: There is an error in XML document (1, 2).
<ResultData xmlns='http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/TsmApi.Logic.BusinesEntities'> was not expected.
ResultData:
[DataContract]
public class ResultData
{
[DataMember]
public bool Success
{
get;
set;
}
[DataMember]
public string Information
{
get;
set;
}
}

You are seeing the exception due to DataContract serialization namespace in the xml. Ideally you want to deserialize this with DataContractSerializer.
If you want to use XmlSerializer, then you will have to clean up the namespace declaration. Following will cleanup all the namespace and allow you to use XmlSerializer. In the foreach loop, we have to remove IsNamespaceDeclaration attribute and then set the element Name property to LocalName.
string xmlResultString = #"<ResultData xmlns=""http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/TsmApi.Logic.BusinesEntities""
xmlns:i=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"">
<Information>Schedule added.</Information>
<Success>true</Success>
</ResultData>";
var doc = XDocument.Parse(xmlResultString);
foreach (var element in doc.Descendants())
{
element.Attributes().Where(a => a.IsNamespaceDeclaration).Remove();
element.Name = element.Name.LocalName;
}
xmlResultString = doc.ToString();
var rdr = new StringReader(xmlResultString);
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(ResultData));
var resultingMessage = (ResultData)serializer.Deserialize(rdr);

XML Element Selection

I am collecting XML data from a weather website xml file here.
I have created the following code, which finds the first instance of 'temp_c' and returns the value. This is the temperature at the current moment.
using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(new StringReader(weather)))
{
while (reader.Read())
{
switch (reader.NodeType)
{
case XmlNodeType.Element:
if (reader.Name.Equals("temp_c"))
{
reader.Read();
temp_c = reader.Value;
}
break;
}
}
}
return temp_c
This returns the value of the first instance in the XML file called "temp_c" to the string called "temp_c"
What I would now like to do is use the Element in the XML document called "period" and the element found with period called "fcttext". When "period = 0" it means "today", 1 = tomorrow, etc; and I am after the "fcttext_metric" data that is associated with that period value.
I've been struggling to work the examples and XML reading codes I've found into the current code that I have here. Can anyone please point me in the right direction?
Edit
Here is an example of the XML file:
<forecast>
<forecastday>
<period>0</period>
<fcttext_metric>Sunny</fcttext_metric>
<forecastday>
<period>1</period>
<fcttext_metric>Cloudy</fcttext_metric>

This ended up being more annoying that I originally expected, but you can create an object graph from the XML using a DataContractSerializer and a set of classes that match the XML you are reading.
First, you create your classes, with appropriate DataContract attributes.
[DataContract(Name = "response", Namespace = "")]
public class WeatherData
{
[DataMember(Name = "forecast")]
public Forecast Forecast { get; set; }
}
[DataContract(Name = "forecast", Namespace = "")]
public class Forecast
{
[DataMember(Name = "txt_forecast")]
public TxtForecast TxtForecast { get; set; }
}
[DataContract(Name = "txt_forecast", Namespace = "")]
public class TxtForecast
{
[DataMember(Name = "forecastdays")]
public ForecastDay[] ForecastDays { get; set; }
}
[DataContract(Name = "forecastday", Namespace = "")]
public class ForecastDay
{
[DataMember(Name = "period", Order = 1)]
public int Period { get; set; }
public string FctText { get; set; }
[DataMember(Name = "fcttext", EmitDefaultValue = false, Order = 5)]
private CDataWrapper FctTextWrapper
{
get { return FctText; }
set { FctText = value; }
}
}
Heres where it got complicated. The fcttext element is CDATA, which the DataContractSerializer doesn't support by default.
Using the wonderful answer available at Using CDATA with WCF REST starter kits, you create a CDataWrapper class. I won't repeat the code here (because that would be pointless), just follow the link.
You can see that I've already used the CDataWrapper class above in order to work with the fcttext element.
Once you've got the class structure setup you can use the following code to extract the information you were after. You're just navigating the object graph at this point, so you can use whatever C# you want (I've used a simple LINQ query to find Period 0 and print out the fcttext for it).
var s = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(WeatherData));
var reader = XmlReader.Create("http://api.wunderground.com/api/74e1025b64f874f6/forecast/conditions/q/zmw:00000.1.94787.xml");
var o = (WeatherData)s.ReadObject(reader);
var firstPeriod = o.Forecast.TxtForecast.ForecastDays.Where(a => a.Period == 0).Single();
Console.WriteLine(firstPeriod.FctText);
You can extend the classes as necessary to give you access to additional fields inside the XML. As long as the DataMember names match the XML fields it will all work.
Here's a short summary of some problems I ran into for anyone interested:
I had to set the Namespace attributes of all of the classes to the empty string, because the XML doesn't have any namespace info in it.
The Order attributes were important on the ForecastDay class. If they are omitted, the DataContractSerializer ends up not reading the fcttext field in at all (because it thinks fcttext should come first? not sure why to be honest).