How to serialize / deserialize xml into a C# object?

Question

How can I serialize / deserialize this xml string into a C# object?

<Response>
    <Business Number="99696" Name="My business" Address=""  />
    <Purchase PurchaseID="7" CustomerID="0" >
        <Item Name="item 1" Qty="100" UnitCost="10.0000" />
        <Item Name="item2" Qty="200" UnitCost="20.0000" />
    </Purchase>
</Response>

Thank you rubenc

I think is a different question because all the questions normally talk about one level and or a list of items

My problem is that I have different levels:

<Response>               //root
    <Business ... />     //level 1
    <Purchase... >       //level 1
        <Item ... />     // list

I get null in number, name etc.

This is what I have tried so far:

    [Serializable, XmlRoot("Response")]
    public class Response
    {
        public Depot depot = new Depot();

        // I have tried this also:
        //[XmlElement("Number")]
        //public string Number { get; set; }

        //[XmlElement("Name")]
        //public string Name { get; set; }
    }

    public class Depot
    {
        [XmlElement("Number")]
        public string Number { get; set; }

        [XmlElement("Name")]
        public string Name { get; set; }
    }


    static object DeserializeResponse(string responseString)
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Response));

        Response result;
        using (var reader = new StringReader(responseString))
        {
            result = (Response)serializer.Deserialize(reader);
        }

        return result;
    }

You'll need to mark object properties filled from xml nodes attributes with [XmlAttribute] attribute and Items array property in Purchase object with [XmlElement("Item")] attribute. After you construct all the classes and feed Response class type to XmlSerializer constructor, XmlSerializer's Deserialize method will do the job. Validate Deserialize's output object and amend object classes definitions if necessary. — twinmind, May 01 '18 at 01:26
Please consider deleting this question (as it's most probably a duplicate) or at least post the solution as an answer and accept it. — Zohar Peled, May 01 '18 at 18:16
Rather than putting the answer in the question, please answer your own question as shown in https://stackoverflow.com/help/self-answer. — dbc, May 01 '18 at 20:13

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered May 01 '18 at 21:37

I Found the solution:

public class Response
{
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("Business", typeof(ResponseBusiness), Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified)]
    public object[] Items { get; set; }
}

public partial class ResponseBusiness
{
    string NumberField;

    string NameField;

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
    public string Number
    {
        get
        {
            return this.NumberField;
        }
        set
        {
            this.NumberField = value;
        }
    }
    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
    public string Name
    {
        get
        {
            return this.NameField;
        }
        set
        {
            this.NameField = value;
        }
    }

I call the XmlSerializer class like this:

var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Response), new XmlRootAttribute("Response"));

And I can read the information like this:

string businessNumber = ((ResponseBusiness)result.Items[0]).Number;

Hope it can help someone else.

How to serialize / deserialize xml into a C# object?

1 Answers1