Question

I need to deserialize a XML file to a object. The XML contents:

  <Players dealerId="2">
    <Player id="1">
      <ScreenName>JetYeo</ScreenName>
    </Player>
    <Player id="2">
      <ScreenName>Test</ScreenName>
    </Player>
  </Players>

I define a object class:

[Serializable()]
[XmlRoot("Players")]
public class Players
{
    [XmlAttribute("dealerId")]
    public int DealerId { get; set; }
    [XmlArrayItem("Player", typeof(Player))]
    public Player[] Players { get; set; }
}

[Serializable()]
[XmlRoot("Player")]
public class Player
{
    [XmlAttribute("id")]
    public int Id { get; set; }
    [XmlElement("ScreenName")]
    public string ScreenName { get; set; }
}

However, deserialization does not work: Players array is null. Please help me to solve it. Thanks.

Answer 1

It fails because the attributes are wrong; the difference is that XmlArrayItem expects an two-level relationship (<Players><Players><Player .../>...</Players></Players>); hence for Players it should be:

[XmlElement("Player")]
public Player[] Players { get; set; }

although personally, I’d prefer:

private readonly List<Player> players = new List<Player>();
[XmlElement("Player")]
public List<Player> Players { get { return players; } }

(i.e. no set, and a list instead of an array)

or even the lazily-instantiated:

private List<Player> players;
[XmlElement("Player")]
public List<Player> Players {
    get { return players ?? (players = new List<Player>()); }
}