How to deserialize XML with multiple nested items?

Question

I have given XML that I can't change and I need to deserialize it to a custom class:

<Person>
   <Addresses>
       <MainAddress>
          <Country />
          <City />
       </MainAddress>
       <AdditionalAddress>
          <Country />
          <City />
       </AdditionalAddress>
       <AdditionalAddress>
          <Country />
          <City />
       </AdditionalAddress>
       ... other additional addresses
   </Addresses>
   ... other elements
</Person>

Then I deserialize:

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Person), namespace);
Person person = serializer.Deserialize(stream) as Person;

Deserializer works fine in case simple elements are deserialized. When there is element like Addresses I implement IXmlSerializable on its class like here: link text

The problem is that reader.ReadElementContentAsString() cannot be used with complex elements.

PanJanek · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-10 14:00:15Z

4

Adressess class should be declared this way:

[XmlRoot("Adressess")]
public class Adressess
{
    [XmlElement(ElementName = "MainAddress")]
    public MainAddress Main { get; set; }

    [XmlElement(ElementName = "AdditionalAddress")]
    public List<AdditionalAddress> AdditionalAddresses { get; set; }
}

[XmlRoot("MainAddress")]
public class MainAddress 
{
    public string Country { get; set; }
    public string City { get; set; }
}

[XmlRoot("AdditionalAddress")]
public class AdditionalAddress
{
    public string Country { get; set; }
    public string City { get; set; }
}

edited Dec 10, 2009 at 14:00

answered Dec 10, 2009 at 13:34

PanJanek

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5 Comments

Eamon Nerbonne Over a year ago

Note that the type-name isn't relevant, so e.g. the MainAddress property could be implemented in a class MainAddressStore or whatever (I find it's sometimes confusing to have properties and types share names). This isn't very important for skeleton classes like this whose only purpose is serialization support, of course.

PanJanek Over a year ago

I've just edited the property names to be different that the class names. I'm just not sure if the distinct MainAddress and AdditionalAddress classes are really required. I wanted them to be annonated with different XmlRoot name.

jlp Over a year ago

I does not work. MainAddress is populated but AdditionalAddresses are not.

PanJanek Over a year ago

Have you use XmlElement no annotate properties in Addresses class? I corrected it a moment ago.

famousgarkin Over a year ago

This is a rather bad approach. One common Address class would be enough, no need to have separate classes for main and additional addresses. I've just seen someone deriving from this example and being needlesly confused.

shrutyzet · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-16 13:32:15Z

0

Also if the root object type has a namespace, you must use the same namespace for the nested types.

Example:

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute(Namespace = "some namespace")]
class Person {...}

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute(Namespace = "some namespace")]
class MainAddress{...}

answered Nov 16, 2012 at 13:32

shrutyzet

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