Question

I’m using an external API to receive xml and serializing this to an object but I want a way to be able to keep the original xml used to serialize for debugging and auditing.

Here’s a sample of how I’m serializing:

XmlReader reader = this.Execute(url);
return Read<Property>(reader, "property");

Extract of Execute() routine:

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
Stream s = response.GetResponseStream();
XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(s);
return reader;

Read() simply wraps up the native xml serialization:

private T Read<T>(XmlReader reader, string rootElement)
{
  XmlRootAttribute root = new XmlRootAttribute();
  root.ElementName = rootElement;
  root.IsNullable = true;
  XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T), root);
  object result = xmlSerializer.Deserialize(reader);
  return (T)result;
}

I’ve had a look around at it appears once you’ve used the reader, you can’t use it again (forward only reading stream?). Without trying to change to much, how can I extract the contents of the reader as xml while still benefiting from the built in serialization with the reader?

What would be nice is to adjust Read with an out param:

private T Read<T>(XmlReader reader, string rootElement, out string sourceXml);

Answer 1

You did not share the code for this.Execute(url), but presumably you build a reader from a stream. First write that stream to a string, then use it somewhere. If the stream is not seekable, dispose it and create a new stream from it.

Also, note that XmlSerializer can take a stream instead of a reader, so you could never bother with the reader and just pass streams among your methods.