Question

Given this XML:

<Items>
 <Item>a</Item>
 <Item>b</Item>
</Items>

How can I deserialize this using XmlSerializer? Either into an array of some custom type or simply into a string[].

I know this can be done if the innermost tags are called “string” but I’d like to keep a custom name.

Answer 1

Here’s one way demonstrating using the XmlSerializer in LINQPad

void Main()
{
    using(var stream = new StringReader("<Items><Item>a</Item><Item>b</Item></Items>"))
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Container));

        var items = (Container)serializer.Deserialize(stream);

        items.Dump();
    }
}

[XmlRoot("Items")]
public class Container
{
    [XmlElement("Item")]
    public List<string> Items { get; set; }
}

Here’s another way using XDocument

void Main()
{
    var doc = XDocument.Parse("<Items><Item>a</Item><Item>b</Item></Items>");

    var list = doc.Element("Items").Elements("Item").Select (d => (string)d);

    list.Dump();
}