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POC# Xml serialization, collection and root element
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  1. POC# Xml serialization, collection and root element
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    copied!<p>My app serializes objects in streams. Here is a sample of what I need :</p> <pre><code>&lt;links&gt; &lt;link href="/users" rel="users" /&gt; &lt;link href="/features" rel="features" /&gt; &lt;/links&gt; </code></pre> <p>In this case, the object is a collection of 'links' object.</p> <p>-----------First version</p> <p>At first I used the <strong>DataContractSerializer</strong>, however you cannot serialize members as attributes (<a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/591907/how-can-you-control-wcf-serialization-so-it-uses-attributes-instead-of-elements">source</a>)</p> <p>Here is the object :</p> <pre><code>[DataContract(Name="link")] public class LinkV1 { [DataMember(Name="href")] public string Url { get; set; } [DataMember(Name="rel")] public string Relationship { get; set; } } </code></pre> <p>And here is the result :</p> <pre><code>&lt;ArrayOflink xmlns:i="...." xmlns="..."&gt; &lt;link&gt; &lt;href&gt;/users&lt;/href&gt; &lt;rel&gt;users&lt;/rel&gt; &lt;/link&gt; &lt;link&gt; &lt;href&gt;/features&lt;/href&gt; &lt;rel&gt;features&lt;/rel&gt; &lt;/link&gt; &lt;/ArrayOflink&gt; </code></pre> <p>----------- Second version</p> <p>Ok, not quiet what I want, so I tried the classic <strong>XmlSerializer</strong>, but... oh nooo, you cannot specify the name of the root element &amp; of the collection's elements if the root element is a collection...</p> <p>Here is the code :</p> <pre><code>[XmlRoot("link")] public class LinkV2 { [XmlAttribute("href")] public string Url { get; set; } [XmlAttribute("rel")] public string Relationship { get; set; } } </code></pre> <p>Here is the result :</p> <pre><code>&lt;ArrayOfLinkV2&gt; &lt;LinkV2 href="/users" rel="users" /&gt; &lt;LinkV2 href="/features" rel="features" /&gt; &lt;LinkV2 href="/features/user/{keyUser}" rel="featuresByUser" /&gt; &lt;/ArrayOfLinkV2&gt; </code></pre> <p>----------- Third version</p> <p>using <strong>XmlSerializer</strong> + a root element :</p> <pre><code>[XmlRoot("trick")] public class TotallyUselessClass { [XmlArray("links"), XmlArrayItem("link")] public List&lt;LinkV2&gt; Links { get; set; } } </code></pre> <p>And its result :</p> <pre><code> &lt;trick&gt; &lt;links&gt; &lt;link href="/users" rel="users" /&gt; &lt;link href="/features" rel="features" /&gt; &lt;link href="/features/user/{keyUser}" rel="featuresByUser" /&gt; &lt;/links&gt; &lt;/trick&gt; </code></pre> <p>Nice, but I don't want that root node !! I want my collection to be the root node.</p> <p>Here are the contraints :</p> <ul> <li>the serialization code is generic, it works with anything serializable</li> <li>the inverse operation (deserialization) have to work too</li> <li>I don't want to regex the result (I serialize directly in an output stream)</li> </ul> <p>What are my solutions now :</p> <ol> <li>Coding my own XmlSerializer</li> <li>Trick XmlSerializer when it works with a collection (I tried, having it find a XmlRootElement and plurialize it to generate its own XmlRootAttribute, but that causes problem when deserializing + the items name still keeps the class name)</li> </ol> <p>Any idea ?</p> <p>What really bother me in that issue, is that what I want seems to be really really really simple...</p>
 

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