Question

My class structure is as follows.

[Serializable]
[XmlRootAttribute("person", Namespace = "", IsNullable = false)]
public class Person : IDisposable
{
      Private int _id;
      Private string _name;

      [XmlElement(“id”)]
      Public int Id
      {
            Get{ return _id;}
            Set{ _id = value;}
      }

      [XmlElement(“name”)]
      Public string Name
      {
            Get{return _name;}
            Set{_name = value;}
      }
}

I am getting the following xml when I serialize the above class

<person> 
 <id>1</id>
  <name>Test</name>
</person>

Now, I would like to serialize the above class as follows i.e. I would like append “type” attribute for each public property that is serialized as xml element. I can append “type” attribute to “person” node by declaring another public property “type” with “[XmlAttribute(“type”)]” but I would like to achieve the same for each public property that is serialized as xml element. Any idea to achieve below:

<person type=”Person”>
  <id type=”int”>1</id>
  <name type=”string”>Test</name>
</person>

Answer 1

First things comes into my mind is to create a generic class, named for example Typed<T>, which looks like this:

    [Serializable]
    public class Typed<T>
    {
        public Typed()
        {
        }

        public Typed( T value )
        {
             this.Value = value;
        }

        [XmlText]
        public T Value { get; set; }

        [XmlAttribute( "Type" )]
        public String Type
        {
            get
            {
                return typeof( T ).Name;
            }
            set
            {
                // Skipped for clarity
            }
        }
    }

Then your Public int Id, becomes Public Typed<int> Id. There might be another way of doing this involving surrogates for the xml parser, but right now this is on top of my head.