Serializing the Same XML Attribute

Question

I am serializing an XML document from a class like so:

<data>
  <name></name>
  <address></address>
  <zip></zip>
  ....a whole bunch more elements
</data>

I would like it to look like this (add an id attribute to every single element):

<data id="">
  <name id=""></name>
  <address id=""></address>
  <zip id=""></zip>
  ....a whole bunch more elements
</data>

How do I set up my class so that the id attribute is added to every single element in my XML? Now, I simply serialize my class properties which might look like so:

public class data 
{
   public string name {get; set;}
   public string address {get; set;}
   public string zip {get; set;}
}

From this example, it looks like I could make each property in my class return a type that contains the id attribute but I'd have to do that for all the properties which seems like overkill.

[Does this help?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1012360/how-to-add-attributes-for-c-xml-serialization) — Peter K., Jun 24 '11 at 21:22
If every ID needs to be unique, you could either do what you suggest, make a new type, or you could do something like create an array of IDS, and then an enum of NAME, ADDRESS, ZIP, and have store and report those IDs based on the enum. — Owen Ivory, Dec 02 '15 at 18:18

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 24 '11 at 21:34

Besides rewritting all of your classes to change the string properties to a class containing the string value plus the id value, the easier way would be to post-process the serialized XML and add the ids there.

class Program
{
    const string XML = @"<data>
  <name></name>
  <address></address>
  <zip></zip>
</data>";

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        XElement xml = XElement.Parse(XML);
        int id = 0;
        AddIds(xml, ref id);
        Console.WriteLine(xml);
    }

    private static void AddIds(XElement xml, ref int id)
    {
        xml.Add(new XAttribute("id", id.ToString()));
        id++;
        foreach (XElement child in xml.Elements())
        {
            AddIds(child, ref id);
        }
    }
}

If you really want to do it during serialization, you'll need to add a class such as the one below, and replace all the string properties with it.

public class StringWithId {
    [XmlAttribute] public string id;
    [XmlText] public string text;
}

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 02 '15 at 18:32

I think the best way to do this is create a generic StringData class, and then have your dataclass simply store a list of StringData objects.

public class StringData 
{
   public StringData(string ID, string TEXT)
   {
      id = ID;
      text = TEXT;
   }
   public string id {get; set;}
   public string text {get; set;}
}

public class data 
{
   private Dictionary<string, StringData> dataList;
   public data()
   {
       dataList = new Dictionary<string, StringData>();
   }

   public void setObject(string tag, string id, string text)
   {
      dataList[tag] = new StringData(id, text);
   }

   public StringData getObject(string tag)
   {
       return dataList[tag]; // Use TryParse for error checking here
   }

   public string getID(string tag)
   {
       return dataList[tag].id;  //needs error checking
   }

   public string getText(string tag)
   {
       return dataList[tag].text; //needs error checking
   }
}

At this point, your data definition is now dynamic. You can store hundreds of elements without needing to constantly update your data storage classes.

Of course, the code I wrote was written here, so it might have typos. Also, there is no error checking, so this code is very dangerous, but I think you get the idea I am suggesting.

Serializing the Same XML Attribute

2 Answers2