Question

I have to XML (de)serialize the following class:

this gives the following output:

<ArrayOfPropertyFilter xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
                       xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <PropertyFilter>
    <AndOr>And</AndOr>
    <LeftBracket>None</LeftBracket>
    <Property>17</Property>
    <Operator>Equal</Operator>
    <Value xsi:type="xsd:string">lll</Value>
    <RightBracket>None</RightBracket>
  </PropertyFilter>
</ArrayOfPropertyFilter>

and, after deserialization it gives

How can I “tell” to Serializer to keep the Value “as is”, without any XML node….(in the concrete case the Value should be “lll” and not XMLNode containing Text “lll”) ?

EDIT

Bellow is a full working sample in C#. The output is

Value is = ‘System.Xml.XmlNode[]’

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace WindowsFormsApplication13
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            PropertyFilter filter = new PropertyFilter();
            filter.AndOr = "Jora";
            filter.Value = "haha";
            filter.Property = 15;

            var xml = filter.SerializeToString();
            XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
            xmlDoc.LoadXml(xml);

            PropertyFilter cloneFilter = xmlDoc.Deserialize<PropertyFilter>();

            Console.WriteLine("Value is = '{0}'", cloneFilter.Value);
        }
    }

    public class PropertyFilter
    {
        public string AndOr { get; set; }
        public string LeftBracket { get; set; }
        public int Property { get; set; }
        public string Operator { get; set; }
        public object Value { get; set; }
        public string RightBracket { get; set; }
    }

    public static class Utils
    {
        public static string SerializeToString(this object instance)
        {
            if (instance == null)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("instance");
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(sb);
            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(
                instance.GetType(), null, new Type[0], null, null);
            serializer.Serialize(sw, instance);
            return sb.ToString();
        }

        public static T Deserialize<T>(this XmlDocument xmlDoc)
        {
            XmlNodeReader reader = new XmlNodeReader(xmlDoc.DocumentElement);
            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
            object obj = serializer.Deserialize(reader);
            T myT = (T)obj;
            return myT;
        }

    }
}

EDIT 2

To stress the Anton answer, the second example (updated with the Groo’s remarks):

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace WindowsFormsApplication13
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            PropertyFilter filter = new PropertyFilter();
            filter.AndOr = "Jora";
            var obj = new Hehe();
            obj.Behehe = 4526;
            filter.Value = obj;
            filter.Property = 15;

            var xml = filter.SerializeToString();
            PropertyFilter cloneFilter = xml.Deserialize<PropertyFilter>();

            Console.WriteLine("Value is = '{0}'", cloneFilter.Value);
        }
    }

    public class Hehe
    {
        public int Behehe { get; set; }
        public override string ToString()
        {
            return string.Format("behehe is '{0}'", Behehe);
        }
    }

    public class PropertyFilter
    {
        public string AndOr { get; set; }
        public string LeftBracket { get; set; }
        public int Property { get; set; }
        public string Operator { get; set; }
        //[XmlElement(typeof(Hehe))]
        public object Value { get; set; }
        public string RightBracket { get; set; }
    }

    public static class Utils
    {
        public static string SerializeToString(this object instance)
        {
            if (instance == null)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("instance");
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(instance.GetType(), null, new Type[0], null, null);
            using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(sb))
            {
                serializer.Serialize(sw, instance);
            }
            return sb.ToString();
        }

        public static T Deserialize<T>(this string xmlString)
        {
            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
            using (StringReader sr = new StringReader(xmlString))
            {
                return (T)serializer.Deserialize(sr);
            }
        }

    }
}

Answer 1

Gree’s solution will work as long as Value takes values of primitive, XSD-defined types like string and int, or user-defined types mentioned somewhere in T‘s definition (T itself, the types of its properties etc.) As soon as you need to deserialize a value of a type different from these, you must declare all possible types of Value with XmlElementAttribute, e.g.

[XmlElement (typeof (string))]
[XmlElement (typeof (int))]
[XmlElement (typeof (MyType), Namespace = "http://example.com/schemas/my")]
public object Value { get ; set ; }