Question

I’m trying to write this method:

XmlDocument AddSchemaToRootNode(XmlDocument xmlDocument, string schema)
{

}

The input document comes from a expensive-to-change application (written in .Net 2.0). The output is consumed by an XSD-aware XmlSerializer.

I have unit tests that show that I need the xmlns=”http://wibble/wobble/wubble” qualifier on the root element in order for the XmlSerializer to work. The untyped-XmlReader doesn’t care. How do I get the xmlns qualifier written in?

Answer 1

You need to inject your namespace using XmlAttributeOverrides. This collection is passed into the XmlSerializer constructor.

To override the root element:

XmlAttributeOverrides overrides = new XmlAttributeOverrides();

var rootNode = new XmlRootAttribute()
{
     ElementName = "MyRootNodeName",
     Namespace = "http://wibble/wobble/wubble"
};

var newAttribute = new XmlAttributes();
newAttribute.XmlRoot = rootNode;

overrides.Add(typeof(MyType), newAttribute);

To call the serilaizer:

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(MyType), overrides);

You can also override any other node in the XML using XmlAttributeOverrides. XmlAttributeOverrides is your friend!

Hope this helps.