Question

I am having a look into using the DataContractSerializer and I’m having trouble getting the right output format. The DataContractSerializer serializes the following class

[DataContract(Name = "response")]
public class MyCollection<T> 
{
    [DataMember]
    public List<T> entry { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public int index { get; set; }
}

Into

<response><entry><T1>object1</T1><T2>object2</T2></entry><index></index></response>

But what I want is

<response><entry><T1>object1</T1></entry><entry><T2>object2</T2></entry><index></index></response>

How do I do this with the DataContractSerializer? But also maintain the first output for DataContractJsonSerializer?

Answer 1

If you are writing xml, I wonder whether xml serializer wouldn’t be a better choice (it has more granular control over the names, etc).

The problem, though, is that XmlSerializer isn’t always the biggest fan of generics…

Additionally – having tried a few options involving [XmlArray] / [XmlArrayItem] etc… it looks very hard to get it to the format you want… plus it isn’t easy to guess what you mean by the T1 / T2 – but the following may come close:

[XmlRoot("response")]
public class MyResponse : MyCollection<int> { }

[DataContract(Name = "response")]
public class MyCollection<T>
{
    [DataMember]
    [XmlElement("entry")]
    public List<T> entry { get; set; }
    [DataMember]
    public int index { get; set; }
}

This has both XmlSerializer and DataContractSerializer attributes, but I had to lose the generics in the type we use for the response (hence the “closed” MyResponse type)