Question

I have a struct like this:

public struct Vehicles
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Count { get; set; }
    public List<Car> Cars { get; set; }
}

public struct Car
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Count { get; set; }
    public List<Tire> Tires { get; set; }
}

public struct Tire
{
    public string Brand { get; set; }
    public int Count { get; set; }
    public int UniqueCount { get; set; }
    public List<Dimension> Dimensions { get; set; }
}

public struct Dimension
{
    public string Size { get; set; }
    public int AlternateSize { get; set; }
}

When I serialize “Vehicles” it is like:

<root xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org /2001/XMLSchema">
  <Vehicles>
    <Name>SuperVehicles</Name>
    <Cars>
      <Car>
        <Name>BMW</Name>
        <Count>29</Count>
        <Tires>
          <Tire>
            <Name>DMZ</Name>
            <Count>26</Count>
            <UniqueCount>24</UniqueCount>
            <Dimensions>
              <Dimension>
                <Size>70x570</Size>
                <AlternateSize>70x580</AlternateSize>
              </Dimension>
              <Dimension>
                <Size>60x570</Size>
                <AlternateSize>60x580</AlternateSize>
              </Dimension>
              <Dimension>
                <Size>50x570</Size>
                <AlternateSize>50x580</AlternateSize>
              </Dimension>
            </Dimensions>
          </Tire>
        </Tires>
      </Car>
    </Cars>
  </Vehicles>
</root>

Now the problem is, I want to serialize it like this:

<root>
  <vehicles vehicleName="superVehicles" vehicleCount="50" carName="BMW"
      carCount="25" tireBrand="kamu" tireCount="15" tireUniqueCount="15"
      dimensionSize="70x570" dimensionAlternateSize="70x580" />
  <vehicles vehicleName="superVehicles" vehicleCount="35" carName="MERCEDES"
      carCount="22" tireBrand="kamu" tireCount="12" tireUniqueCount="12"
      dimensionSize="60x570" dimensionAlternateSize="60x580" />
  <vehicles vehicleName="superVehicles" vehicleCount="35" carName="PORSCHE"
      carCount="22" tireBrand="kamu" tireCount="12" tireUniqueCount="12"
      dimensionSize="60x570" dimensionAlternateSize="60x580" />
</root>

Do I have to change the structure and avoid the groupings or is there any way to create a schema for xml serialization to gather this result.

Summary:
I get all the child items in a new tag when I serialize the root struct to xml but I need to take them as properties of an instance that create only the count of root (Vehicles in this situation) element of rows to xml.

Answer 1

You need to do manual serialization.

Here is how you can implement this using System.Xml.Linq :

var xmlElementsVehicles  = new[]{
                                  new XElement("vehicles ", new object[]
                                  {
                                   new XElement("vehicleName", "superVehicles"),
                                   new XElement("vehicleCount", 35),
                                   new XElement("carName", "PORSCHE"),
                                   new XElement("carCount", 2)
                                  }),
                                  new XElement("vehicles ", new object[]
                                  {
                                   new XElement("vehicleName", "superVehicles"),
                                   new XElement("vehicleCount", 35),
                                   new XElement("carName", "PORSCHE"),
                                   new XElement("carCount", 2)
                                  })
                                };
var root = new XElement("root", xmlElementsVehicles );
var myXml = new XDocument(new XDeclaration("1.0", "utf-8", "yes"), root);
using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(stream))
{
  myXml.Save(xmlWriter);
}