Question

When I serialize an object which has a DateTime in it this is returning empty in the XML string.

Please see below for my XSD, serializable class generated from the XSD, and serialization helper class which handles the serialization of the XSD.

XSD:

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
     <xs:schema id="test" xmlns="" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
      <xs:element name="testInformation">
       <xs:complexType>
        <xs:sequence>
             <xs:element name="DateOfBirth" minOccurs="0">
               <xs:simpleType>
                 <xs:restriction base="xs:date">
                   <xs:pattern value="\d{4}-\d{2}-\d{2}" />
                 </xs:restriction>
               </xs:simpleType>
             </xs:element>
           </xs:sequence>
         </xs:complexType>
      </xs:element>
     </xs:schema>

Serializer:

     /// <summary>
         /// This static class provides methods which can be used to help with
 common xml serialiazation tasks.
         /// </summary>
         public static class XmlSerializationHelper
         {
                     public static string
 SerializeObject<ObjectToSerialize>(ObjectToSerialize
 obj)
             {
                 string responseXML = string.Empty;
                 using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
                 using (StreamWriter output = new StreamWriter(ms,
 Encoding.UTF8))
                 using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(ms, Encoding.UTF8))
                 {
                     XmlSerializer xmlSerializer = new
 XmlSerializer(typeof(ObjectToSerialize));
                     xmlSerializer.Serialize(output, obj);
                     ms.Position = 0;

                     responseXML = sr.ReadToEnd();
                 }
                 return responseXML;
             }
         }

Serializable class

     //------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     // <auto-generated>
     //     This code was generated by a tool.
     //     Runtime Version:2.0.50727.3607
     //
     //     Changes to this file may cause incorrect behavior and will be
 lost if
     //     the code is regenerated.
     // </auto-generated>
     //------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     // 
     // This source code was auto-generated by xsd,
 Version=2.0.50727.42.
     // 

         using System.Xml.Serialization;


         /// <remarks/>
         [System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd",
 "2.0.50727.42")]
         [System.SerializableAttribute()]
         [System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
         [System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
         [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType=true)]
         [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute(Namespace="",
 IsNullable=false)]
         public partial class testInformation {

             private System.DateTime dateOfBirthField;

             private bool dateOfBirthFieldSpecified;

             /// <remarks/>
             [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified)]
             public System.DateTime DateOfBirth {
                 get {
                     return this.dateOfBirthField;
                 }
                 set {
                     this.dateOfBirthField = value;
                 }
             }

             /// <remarks/>
             [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIgnoreAttribute()]
             public bool DateOfBirthSpecified {
                 get {
                     return this.dateOfBirthFieldSpecified;
                 }
                 set {
                     this.dateOfBirthFieldSpecified =
 value;
                 }
             }
         }

Why is the DateTime value being serialized into an empty string?

Answer 1

Are you setting DateOfBirthFieldSpecified to true ? It will default to false, meaning: don’t serialize this.