Question

In a project I am working on I have been given XML to work with that I have no control over. I need to pull out an array of nodes as well as a singular property that is a sibling of the array. (See sample XML below)

<pagination>
    <total-pages>1</total-pages>
    <page position="first">?i=1;q=gloves</page>
    <page position="last">?i=1;q=gloves</page>
    <page position="1" selected="true">?i=1;q=gloves</page>      
</pagination>

In the above example I need to pull out the total-pages node as an int and create an array of the page nodes. I have the basics of the deserializer working I just need to know how to set up my class to allow me to pull the array and int out. If I do the following in my main class:

[XmlArray("pagination")]
[XmlArrayItem("page", typeof(ResultsPage))]
public ResultsPage[] Pages { get; set; }
[XmlElement(ElementName = "total-pages")]
public int TotalPages { get; set; }

I get the array of the page nodes, but TotalPages is 0 and not 1. I have also tried the following in my main class:

[XmlElement(ElementName = "pagination")]
public Pagination Pagination { get; set; }

with a sub class

public class Pagination
{
    [XmlArray]
    [XmlArrayItem("page", typeof(ResultsPage))]
    public ResultsPage[] Pages { get; set; }
    [XmlElement(ElementName = "total-pages")]
    public int TotalPages { get; set; }
}

In that case the TotalPages is correctly set to 1, but the Pages array is null.

Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

This should work

public class Pagination
{
    [XmlElement("page")]
    public List<ResultsPage> Pages { get; set; }
    [XmlElement("total-pages")]
    public int TotalPages { get; set; }
}

public class ResultsPage
{
    [XmlAttribute("position")]
    public string Position;

    [XmlText]
    public string Text;
}

You only need to use XmlArray and XmlArrayItem attributes if you have a container element which you want to flatten. I.e.

<pagination>
    <total-pages>1</total-pages>
    <pages>
        <page position="first">?i=1;q=gloves</page>
        <page position="last">?i=1;q=gloves</page>
        <page position="1" selected="true">?i=1;q=gloves</page>      
    </pages>
</pagination>

Then you wold write

public class Pagination
{
    [XmlArray("pages"), XmlArrayItem("page")]
    public List<ResultsPage> Pages { get; set; }
    [XmlElement("total-pages")]
    public int TotalPages { get; set; }
}