Question

I was given a XSD file and sample XML file, and asked to post the XML file to a URL.

Sample XML file

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<pingRequest>
   <elt></elt>
   ...
</pingRequest>

I’m familiar with SOAP and REST, but I have never done posting pure XML file directly. Here is what I got so far.

1) Generate C# class from XSD file

 xsd.exe Test.xsd /c

2) Serialize from C# class to XML using XmlSerializer

public string SerializeObject(object obj, Type type)
{
    string xml;
    var xs = new XmlSerializer(type);
    using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
    {
        xs.Serialize(ms, obj, null);
        ms.Position = 0;
        using (var sr = new StreamReader(memoryStream))
        {
            xml = sr.ReadToEnd();
        }
    }
    return xml;
}

OR Should I use LINQ to XML to generate XML file?

3) Post XML to URL using WebClient

var client = new WebClient();
var uri = new Uri("http://www.site.com/");
string responseXML = client.UploadString(uri, requestXML);

Am I at the right track? If not, could you please point me to a right direction? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Here is my partial code so that other can use it.

First, created two classes based on XML tags using xsd.exe Test.xsd /c (for both request and response), so that I do not have to prase the XML files manually.

public pingResponse Send()
{
  var pingRequest = new pingRequest
  {
    myelement = "test"
  };

  // Serialize pingRequest class to xml
  var serializer = new Serializer();
  string requestXml = serializer.SerializeObject(pingRequest, typeof(pingRequest));

  // Post xml
  var client = new WebClient(); 
  var uri = new Uri("http://www.site.com/"); 
  string responseXML = client.UploadString(uri, requestXML); 

  return (pingResponse)serializer.DeserializeObject(xml, typeof(Response));
}


public class Serializer
{
  public string SerializeObject(object obj, Type type)
  {
    var setting = new XmlWriterSettings() {OmitXmlDeclaration = true, Indent = true};
    var xml = new StringBuilder();
    using (var writer = XmlWriter.Create(xml, setting))
    {
      var nsSerializer = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
      nsSerializer.Add(string.Empty, string.Empty);

      var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(type);
      xmlSerializer.Serialize(writer, obj, nsSerializer);
    }   
    return xml.ToString();
  }

  public object DeserializeObject(string xml, Type type)
  {
    var xs = new XmlSerializer(type);
    var stringReader = new StringReader(xml);
    var obj = xs.Deserialize(stringReader);
    stringReader.Close();
    return obj;
  }
}

Note: I do not include the PingRequest and PingResponse classes since my member variables will not be same as yours.