XML Serialize elements inside one another - c#

I have a class that could be serialized on its own, for example:
[XmlRoot("NameOfMyRoot", Namespace = "myNamespace")]
public class Inner
{
public Inner(){}
public string SomeString { get; set; }
}
Which is perfectly serializing into (I am using ns alias for myNamespace, see full demo)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<NameOfMyRoot xmlns:ns="myNamespace">
<ns:SomeString></ns:SomeString>
</NameOfMyRoot>
Now I want this object to be part of another one (the wrapper):
[XmlRoot("Root")]
public class Outer<T>
{
public T Property{ get; set; }
public Outer(){}
public Outer(T inner)
{
Property = inner;
}
}
Which gives me this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<Root xmlns:ns="myNamespace">
<Property>
<ns:SomeString></ns:SomeString>
</Property>
</Root>
What I want is just embedding inner object as-is into its parent, like so:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<Root>
<NameOfMyRoot xmlns:ns="myNamespace">
<ns:SomeString></ns:SomeString>
</NameOfMyRoot>
</Root>
Notice that namespace should not move to root, and I can't specify element's name, since there will be many different types.
Fiddle with full example.
Of cource, I can just serialize them separately and combine through some nasty string manipulation, but I hope there is a neat way to achieve this somehow.

There's no easy way to do that. You can do it at runtime, though:
// perhaps discover these details at runtime
var attribs = new XmlAttributeOverrides();
attribs.Add(typeof(Outer<Inner>), "Property", new XmlAttributes
{
XmlElements = { new XmlElementAttribute {ElementName = "NameOfMyRoot" } }
});
attribs.Add(typeof(Inner), "SomeString", new XmlAttributes
{
XmlElements = { new XmlElementAttribute { Namespace = "myNamespace"} }
});
var ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Outer<Inner>), attribs);
var obj = new Outer<Inner> { Property = new Inner { SomeString = "abc" } };
ser.Serialize(Console.Out, obj);
Note that you must store and re-use such a serializer; for simple new XmlSerializer() examples, the serializer is cached internally and re-used; however, for non-trivial cases like this, a new dynamic type is emitted each time, so you will leak memory (it won't be unloaded).
That gives you:
<Root xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<NameOfMyRoot>
<SomeString xmlns="myNamespace">abc</SomeString>
</NameOfMyRoot>
</Root>
If you don't want the two xmlns alias declaration, those can be removed separately, but they do not change the meaning, at least to a compliant reader. Likewise, the ns can be added as an alias:
var obj = new Outer<Inner> { Property = new Inner { SomeString = "abc" } };
var ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
ns.Add("", "");
ns.Add("ns", "myNamespace");
ser.Serialize(Console.Out, obj, ns);
which gives:
<Root xmlns:ns="myNamespace">
<NameOfMyRoot>
<ns:SomeString>abc</ns:SomeString>
</NameOfMyRoot>
</Root>
As an alternative approach:
using System;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
[XmlRoot("NameOfMyRoot")]
public class Inner
{
public Inner() { }
[XmlElement(Namespace = "myNamespace")]
public string SomeString { get; set; }
}
static class Program
{
static void Main()
{
using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(Console.Out))
{
writer.WriteStartDocument(false);
writer.WriteStartElement("Root");
var ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Inner));
var obj = new Inner { SomeString = "abc" };
var ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
ns.Add("", "");
ns.Add("ns", "myNamespace");
ser.Serialize(writer, obj, ns);
writer.WriteEndElement();
writer.WriteEndDocument();
}
}
}
What I've done here is to manually write the root node, and only get the XmlSerializer to write the inner content. Note that I had to change the attributes aroung SomeString to make it work in the way you expect (where it is the string that has the namespace, not the object).

Related

C# serialize object to XML with element containing XML text without escaping

I searched and tried some attributes but none of them worked for my below scenario:
public class ObjSer
{
[XmlElement("Name")]
public string Name
{
get; set;
}
}
//Code to serialize
var obj = new ObjSer();
obj.Name = "<tag1>Value</tag1>";
var stringwriter = new System.IO.StringWriter();
System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer serializer = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());
serializer.Serialize(stringwriter, obj);
Output would be as follows:
<ObjSer><Name><tag1>Value</tag1></Name></ObjSer>
But I need output as:
<ObjSer><Name><tag1>Value</tag1></Name></ObjSer>
Scenario 2: In some cases I need to set:
obj.Name = "Value";
Is there any attribute or method I can override to make it possible?
You can't with default serializer. XmlSerializer does encoding of all values during serialization.
If you want your member to hold xml value, it must be XmlElement. Here is how you can accomplish it
public class ObjSer
{
[XmlElement("Name")]
public XmlElement Name
{
get; set;
}
}
var obj = new ObjSer();
// <-- load xml
var doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml("<tag1>Value</tag1>");
obj.Name = doc.DocumentElement;
// --> assign the element
System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer serializer = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());
serializer.Serialize(Console.Out, obj);
Output:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="IBM437"?>
<ObjSer xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<Name>
<tag1>Value</tag1>
</Name>
</ObjSer>
UPDATE:
In case if you want to use XElement instead of XmlElement, here is sample on how to do it
public class ObjSer
{
[XmlElement("Name")]
public XElement Name
{
get; set;
}
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//Code to serialize
var obj = new ObjSer();
obj.Name = XDocument.Parse("<tag1>Value</tag1>").Document.FirstNode as XElement;
System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer serializer = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(obj.GetType());
serializer.Serialize(Console.Out, obj);
}
No, you can't. It is the natural and usual behaviour of the xml serializer. The serializer doesn't have to handle within the XML strings. So, it escapes the xml as expected.
You should decode the escaped string again while deserializing it.
If you want to add dynamically elements in the XML I suggest you to use Linq to XML and you can create tag1 or another kind of elements easily.
I would suggest serializing to an XDocument then converting that to a string and manually unescaping the desired part and writing it to a file. I would say this would give you the least headache it shouldn't be more than a couple lines of code. If you need it I can provide some code example if needed.
I found one more way of changing the type
public class NameNode
{
public string tag1
{
get; set;
}
[XmlText]
public string Value
{
get; set;
}
}
public class ObjSer
{
[XmlElement("Name")]
public NameNode Name
{
get; set;
}
}
To set value of Name:
var obj = new ObjSer();
var valueToSet = "<tag1>Value</tag1>";
//or var valueToSet = "Value";
//With XML tag:
if (valueToSet.Contains("</"))
{
var doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.LoadXml(valueToSet);
obj.Name.tag1 = doc.InnerText;
}
else //Without XML Tags
{
obj.Name.Value = senderRecipient.Name;
}
This solution will work in both cases, but has limitation. It will work only for predefined tags (ex. tag1)

XML, deserialize

I've an xml document like this
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<data>
<myassembly name="t1" folder="1">
<myassembly name="t1.1" folder="0" />
<myassembly name="t1.2" folder="0">
<myassembly name="t1.2.1" folder="0"/>
</myassembly>
<myassembly name="t2" folder="0"/>
<myassembly name="t3" folder="0">
<myassembly name="t3.1" folder="0"/>
<myassembly name="t3.2" folder="0"/>
</myassembly>
</myassembly>
</data>
And two classes to read the xml data:
class data{
[XmlElement("myassembly")]
MyAssembly myassembly;
}
class MyAssembly{
[XmlAttribute("name")]
string name;
[XmlAttribute("folder")]
string folder;
[XmlArrayItem("myassembly")]
MyAssembly[] myassembly;
}
I want to have this array list structure:
data:
assembly:
-name: t1
-folder: 1
-myassembly[4]:
[0]-name: t1.1
[0]-folder: 0
[0]-myassembly: null
[1]-name: t1.2
[1]-folder: 0
[1]-myassembly: [4]
[0]-name: t1.2.1
[0]-folder: 0
[0]-myassembly: null
[2]-name: t2
[2]-folder: 0
[2]-myassembly: null
[3]-name: t3
[3]-folder: 0
[3]-myassembly: [2]
[0]-name: t3.1
[0]-folder: 0
[0]-myassembly: null
[1]-name: t3.2
[1]-folder: 0
[1]-myassembly: null
But: with my attributes, i can't get this array list.
I hope, I have described it sufficiently.
regard
raiserle
Assuming you are using XmlSerializer as seems likely, you have the following issues:
XmlSerializer only serializes public types and members. All of your types and members are private.
The public MyAssembly[] myassembly member of MyAssembly needs to be marked with [XmlElement("myassembly")]. This indicates that the array should be serialized as a sequence of elements named <myassembly> without an outer container element. By default an outer container element is used when serializing a collection.
Thus your classes should be (converting public fields to properties):
public class data
{
[XmlElement("myassembly")]
public MyAssembly myassembly { get; set; }
}
public class MyAssembly
{
[XmlAttribute("name")]
public string name { get; set; }
[XmlAttribute("folder")]
public string folder { get; set; }
[XmlElement("myassembly")]
public MyAssembly[] myassembly { get; set; }
}
Then you can serialize and deserialize using these extension methods:
public static class XmlSerializationHelper
{
public static T LoadFromXML<T>(this string xmlString)
{
using (StringReader reader = new StringReader(xmlString))
{
return (T)new XmlSerializer(typeof(T)).Deserialize(reader);
}
}
public static string GetXml<T>(this T obj, bool omitStandardNamespaces = false)
{
XmlSerializerNamespaces ns = null;
if (omitStandardNamespaces)
{
ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
ns.Add("", ""); // Disable the xmlns:xsi and xmlns:xsd lines.
}
using (var textWriter = new StringWriter())
{
var settings = new XmlWriterSettings() { Indent = true, IndentChars = " " }; // For cosmetic purposes.
using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(textWriter, settings))
new XmlSerializer(obj.GetType()).Serialize(xmlWriter, obj, ns);
return textWriter.ToString();
}
}
}
Using them as follows:
var data = xmlString.LoadFromXML<data>();
Sample fiddle.

How to include attributes for an element (not the root) with XML Serialization in C#

I need to generate an XML that looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<inboundMessage xmlns="http://www.myurl.net">
<header>
<password>mypwd</password>
<subscriberId>myuser</subscriberId>
</header>
<message xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:type="myType">
<eventDate>2012-09-05T12:13:45.561-05:00</eventDate>
<externalEventId />
<externalId>SomeIdC</externalId>
</message>
</inboundMessage>
The problem is that I don't know how to include the xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:type="myType" in my tag. My class that I need to serialize is this:
[XmlType("inboundMessage")]
[XmlRoot(Namespace = "http://www.myurl.net")]
public class InboundMessage
{
[XmlElement(ElementName = "header")]
public Header _header;
[XmlElement(ElementName = "message")]
public List<MyType> _messages;
}
What XmlAttributes do I need to add to my "_messages" member to make it serialize the way I want?
TIA,
Ed
Use XmlAttribute like this:
public class MyType
{
[XmlAttribute("type", Namespace = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance")]
public string Type { get; set; }
}
A coleague of mine came up with a somewhat similar solution, yet more complete. MyType had two properties added:
[XmlNamespaceDeclarations]
public XmlSerializerNamespaces Namespaces { get; set; }
[XmlAttribute("type", Namespace = "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance")]
public string Type
{
get { return _type; }
set { _type = value; }
}
with _type being defined like this:
private string _type = "myType";
Then the serialization was done in a different way:
// declare an XmlAttributes object, indicating that the namespaces declaration should be kept
var atts = new XmlAttributes { Xmlns = true };
// declare an XmlAttributesOverrides object and ...
var xover = new XmlAttributeOverrides();
// ... add the XmlAttributes object with regard to the "Namespaces" property member of the "Message" type
xover.Add(typeof(MyType), "Namespaces", atts);
// set the Namespaces property for each message in the payload body
var messageNamespaces = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
messageNamespaces.Add("xsi", "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance");
foreach (var message in myInboundMessage._messages)
{
message.Namespaces = messageNamespaces;
}
// create a serializer
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(object2Serialize.GetType(), xover);
// add the namespaces for the root element
var rootNamespaces = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
rootNamespaces.Add("", "http://www.myurl.net");
// serialize and extract the XML as text
string objectAsXmlText;
using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
using (var xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(stream, null))
{
serializer.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, object2Serialize, rootNamespaces);
stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
var buffer = new byte[stream.Length];
stream.Read(buffer, 0, (int)stream.Length);
objectAsXmlText = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(buffer);
}
Finally, the InboundMessage was decorated like this:
[XmlRoot("inboundMessage", Namespace = "http://www.myurl.net")]
With this approach I get exactely what I need.

Custom XML-element name for base class field in serialization

How can I change XML-element name for field inherited from base class while doing serialization?
For example I have next base class:
public class One
{
public int OneField;
}
Serialization code:
static void Main()
{
One test = new One { OneField = 1 };
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof (One));
TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter("Output.xml");
serializer.Serialize(writer, test);
writer.Close();
}
I get what I need:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<One xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<OneField>1</OneField>
</One>
Now I have created new class inherited from A with additional field and custom XML element name for it:
public class Two : One
{
[XmlElement("SecondField")]
public int TwoField;
}
Serialization code:
static void Main()
{
Two test = new Two { OneField = 1, TwoField = 2 };
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof (Two));
TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter("Output.xml");
serializer.Serialize(writer, test);
writer.Close();
}
As a result I get next output:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Two xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<OneField>1</OneField>
<SecondField>2</SecondField>
</Two>
The problem is that I want to change OneField in this output to FirstField without touching base class code (because I will use it too and the names must be original). How can I accomplish this?
Thank you.
Try this:
public class Two : One
{
private static XmlAttributeOverrides xmlOverrides;
public static XmlAttributeOverrides XmlOverrides
{
get
{
if (xmlOverrides == null)
{
xmlOverrides = new XmlAttributeOverrides();
var attr = new XmlAttributes();
attr.XmlElements.Add(new XmlElementAttribute("FirstField"));
xmlOverrides.Add(typeof(One), "OneField", attr);
}
return xmlOverrides;
}
}
[XmlElement("SecondField")]
public string TwoField;
}
And your serializer init is a lot easier:
var xmls = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(typeof(Two), Two.XmlOverrides);
Here's a workaround: Override the fields in the subclass and mark the overriden field with whatever name you need. For example,
class One
{
public int OneField { get; set; }
}
class Two : One
{
[XmlElement("FirstField")]
public new int OneField
{
get { return base.OneField; }
set { base.OneField = value; }
}
}

How to get rid of the xmlns when using xml serialization

I don't want the following to be appended to the root element
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
what should I do when using XML serialization.
By using the Serialize method:
public class Foo { }
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
var foo = new Foo();
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(foo.GetType());
var ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
ns.Add(string.Empty, string.Empty);
serializer.Serialize(Console.Out, foo, ns);
}
}
Notice the last argument (ns).

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