Question

I’m having issues trying to deserializing my xml string that was from a dataset..

Here is the XML layout..

<DataSet>
  <User>
    <UserName>Test</UserName>
    <Email>[e-mail]</Email>
    <Details>
      <ID>1</ID>
      <Name>TestDetails</Name>
      <Value>1</Value>
    </Details>
    <Details>
      <ID>2</ID>
      <Name>Testing</Name>
      <Value>3</Value>
    </Details>
  </User>
</DataSet>

Now I am able to deserialize the “UserName” and “Email” when doing

public class User
{
    public string UserName {get;set;}
    public string Email {get;set;}
    public Details[] Details {get;set;}
}
public class Details
{
    public int ID {get;set;}
    public string Name {get;set;}
    public string Value {get;set;}
}

This deserializes fine when I just get the user node, the Details isnt null but has no items in it..

i know I am suppose to have between all the details but I rather not modify the XML, anyways to get this to deserialize properly without recreating the XML after I get it?

Answer 1

I assume you are trying to use XmlSerializer? If so, you just need to add the [XmlElement] attribute to the Details member. This might not seem intuitive, but this tells the serializer that you want to serialize/deserialize the array items as elements rather than an array with the items as child elements of the array.

Here is a quick example

public Test()
{
  string xml = @"<DataSet> 
                   <User> 
                     <UserName>Test</UserName> 
                       <Email>[e-mail]</Email> 
                      <Details> 
                        <ID>1</ID> 
                        <Name>TestDetails</Name> 
                        <Value>1</Value> 
                      </Details> 
                      <Details> 
                        <ID>2</ID> 
                        <Name>Testing</Name> 
                        <Value>3</Value> 
                      </Details> 
                    </User> 
                  </DataSet>";

  XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(DataSet));
  DataSet ds = (DataSet)xs.Deserialize(new StringReader(xml));
}

[Serializable]
public class DataSet
{
  public User User;      
}

[Serializable]
public class User
{
  public string UserName { get; set; }
  public string Email { get; set; }

  [XmlElement]
  public Details[] Details { get; set; }
}

[Serializable]
public class Details
{
  public int ID { get; set; }
  public string Name { get; set; }
  public string Value { get; set; }
}