Question

I get an XML type data, such as this;

<Response>
  <Clients>
    <Client>
      <ID>1</ID>
      <Name>John</Name>
      <Age>25</Age>
      <Address>Some address</Address>
    </Client>
    <Client>
      <ID>2</ID>
      <Name>Mark</Name>
      <Age>22</Age>
      <Address>Some address2</Address>
    </Client>
    <Client>
      <ID>3</ID>
      <Name>Phil</Name>
      <Age>30</Age>
      <Address>Some address3</Address>
    </Client>
  </Clients>
</Response>

In C# I have the following code:

[XmlRoot("Response")]
public class MyClients
{
    [XmlElement("Clients", typeof(MyClient))]
    public List<MyClient> Clients { get; set; }
}

public class MyClient
{
    [XmlElement("ID")]
    public int ID;

    [XmlElement("Name")]
    public string Name;

    [XmlElement("Age")]
    public int Age;

    [XmlElement("Address")]
    public string Address;
}

and I try to get this data, using

public ActionResult GetClients()
{
    HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("someUrl");
    HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
    XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(WFMClientsList));
    Stream receiveStream = response.GetResponseStream();
    WFMClientsList clients = (MyClients)serializer.Deserialize(receiveStream);
}

but I get nothing in response.

Can anyone explain how to deserialize XML to List<MyClient> correctly?

Answer 1

The problem is that what you have declared doesn’t actually match your XML. If you serialize an object from your current declaration, you get:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<Response xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Clients>
    <ID>1</ID>
    <Name>John</Name>
    <Age>25</Age>
    <Address>Some address</Address>
  </Clients>
</Response>

Try:

[XmlRoot("Response")]
public class MyClients
{
    [XmlArray("Clients")]
    [XmlArrayItem("Client")]
    public List<MyClient> Clients { get; set; }
}

[XmlRoot("Client")]
public class MyClient
{
    [XmlElement("ID")]
    public int ID;
    [XmlElement("Name")]
    public string Name;
    [XmlElement("Age")]
    public int Age;
    [XmlElement("Address")]
    public string Address;
}

Which produces:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<Response xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Clients>
    <Client>
      <ID>1</ID>
      <Name>John</Name>
      <Age>25</Age>
      <Address>Some address</Address>
    </Client>
  </Clients>
</Response>