Question

I am trying to create an xml doc by serializing objects. I came across an issue.

Target xml structure is similar to an HTML page. It has a form element with some attributes
and can have any number of controls like textfields, buttons etc. Object I create for this structure is given below. To add all these controls I am using an array list called items. When the object is seraialzed all the controls appear inside the tags . I want the controls appear as the direct child of form elements. How can I do this?

   [XmlInclude(typeof(Lstatic))]

    [XmlInclude(typeof(textField))]

    public class form
    {
        [XmlAttribute]
        public String action
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        [XmlAttribute]
        public String method
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        [XmlAttribute]
        public String name
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        [XmlArray]
        public ArrayList items
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

    }

and this is the resulting XML

<form name="login" method="get" action="/FetchIndex.asmx/findAddresses"> 
<items> 
<anyType value="Please key in your details:" xsi:type="Lstatic"/> 
<anyType name="postCode" value="" xsi:type="textField" size="10" label="Postcode:" hint="Enter your postcode"/> 
</items> 
</form>

Instead I want the resulting xml like this

<form name="login" method="get" action="/FetchIndex.asmx/findAddresses"> 

    <anyType value="Please key in your details:" xsi:type="Lstatic"/> 
    <anyType name="postCode" value="" xsi:type="textField" size="10" label="Postcode:" hint="Enter your postcode"/> 

    </form>

How can i do this in c#?
Thanks

Answer 1

This code is untested, sorry, it is only what I remember. I believe you need the XmlElement attribute.

[XmlElement("AnyType")]
public object[] itemsSerializable
{
    get { return items.ToArray(); }
    set { items = new ArrayList(value); }
}

[XmlIgnore]
public ArrayList items
{
    get;
    set;
}

If it works, there’s a possibility it might also work without the need of the itemsSerializable property, you should check it out.