Question

I want to serialize my enum-value as an int, but i only get the name.

Here is my (sample) class and enum:

public class Request {     public RequestType request; }  public enum RequestType {     Booking = 1,     Confirmation = 2,     PreBooking = 4,     PreBookingConfirmation = 5,     BookingStatus = 6 } 

And the code (just to be sure i’m not doing it wrong)

Request req = new Request(); req.request = RequestType.Confirmation; XmlSerializer xml = new XmlSerializer(req.GetType()); StringWriter writer = new StringWriter(); xml.Serialize(writer, req); textBox1.Text = writer.ToString(); 

This answer (to another question) seems to indicate that enums should serialize to ints as default, but it doesn’t seem to do that. Here is my output:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-16'?> <Request xmlns:xsi='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance' xmlns:xsd='http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema'>   <request>Confirmation</request> </Request> 

I have been able to serialize as the value by putting an ‘[XmlEnum(‘X’)]’ attribute on every value, but this just seems wrong.

Answer 1

Most of the time, people want names, not ints. You could add a shim property for the purpose?

[XmlIgnore] public MyEnum Foo {get;set;}  [XmlElement('Foo')] [EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never), Browsable(false)] public int FooInt32 {     get {return (int)Foo;}     set {Foo = (MyEnum)value;} } 

Or you could use IXmlSerializable, but that is lots of work.