How to deserialize xml ignoring differences in node types(i.e whether XmlElement or XmlAttribute)

Question

How do you deserialize xml ignoring difference in node types, that is whether a member is represented as an XmlElement or as an XmlAttribute.

For example, I have this source xml

<Book>
   <Title>Introduction to c#</Title>
   <Publisher>John Smith</Publisher>
   <Year>2012</Year>
<Book>

And I would like to deserialize it using this class

public class Book
{
   public string Title{ get; set; }

   [XmlAttribute()]
   public string Publisher{ get; set; }

   [XmlAttribute()]
   public string Year{ get; set; }
}

As you can see Publisher and Year are marked with "[XmlAttribute]" in the class so they are not deserialized.

Is there a way to tell the deserializer to ignore differences in whether the member is represented as an Attribute or as an Element?

I need this in a generic Converter to convert one type to another similar type

        public static Type2 ConvertType1ToType2<Type1, Type2>(Type1 type1)
        {
            using (MemoryStream objectStream = new MemoryStream())
            {
                XmlSerializer type1Serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Type1));
                XmlSerializer type2Deserializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Type2));

                type1Serializer.Serialize(objectStream, type1);
                objectStream.Position = 0;

                return (Type2)type2Deserializer.Deserialize(objectStream);
            }
        }

Jignesh Thakker · Answer 1 · 2012-09-09T03:14:50.017

Try with this,

 string sXml = @"<Book>
                             <Title>Introduction to c#</Title>
                            <Publisher>John Smith</Publisher>
                            <Year>2012</Year>
                            </Book>";

            XmlAttributeOverrides overrides = new XmlAttributeOverrides();

            XmlAttributes PublisherAttributes = new XmlAttributes();
            XmlAttributes YearAttributes = new XmlAttributes();

            PublisherAttributes.XmlElements.Add(new XmlElementAttribute("Publisher"));
            YearAttributes.XmlElements.Add(new XmlElementAttribute("Year"));

            overrides.Add(typeof(Book), "Publisher", PublisherAttributes);
            overrides.Add(typeof(Book), "Year", YearAttributes);

           XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Book), overrides);
           System.IO.TextReader oReader = new System.IO.StringReader(sXml);

           Book oBook = (Book) ser.Deserialize(oReader);

Does this help ?

Thanks for your response. Using overrides will require me to know the names of the members to override. Do you know of any generic means to achieve this purpose? I've updated the question to include usage scenario. — adentum, Sep 08 '12 at 14:55

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 09 '12 at 03:17

As you updated your question, you need Generic logic for converting Type1 to Type2.

Try with below solution,

For both type classes (Type1 & Type2) I assumed that both have same properties with same name.

Lets say we have two class Book & Book1.

   public class Book
{
    public string Title { get; set; }

    [XmlAttribute()]
    public string Publisher { get; set; }

    [XmlAttribute()]
    public string Year { get; set; }
}

public class Book1
{
    public string Title { get; set; }

    [XmlAttribute()]
    public string Publisher { get; set; }

    [XmlAttribute()]
    public string Year { get; set; }
}

ConvertType1ToType2 Function:

 public static Type2 ConvertType1ToType2<Type1, Type2>(Type1 type1)
    {
        using (System.IO.MemoryStream objectStream = new System.IO.MemoryStream())
        {
             XmlRootAttribute root = new XmlRootAttribute("Book");

            //Get All MemberInfo of Type1
            Type objType1 = type1.GetType();
            System.Reflection.MemberInfo[] objType1Member = objType1.GetMembers();
            List<Type> extraTypesForType1 = new List<Type>();


            //Type1 => XmlAttributeOverrides
            XmlAttributeOverrides Type1overrides = new XmlAttributeOverrides();
            foreach (System.Reflection.MemberInfo m in objType1Member)
            {
                if (m.MemberType.Equals( System.Reflection.MemberTypes.Property))
                {
                    XmlAttributes attributes = new XmlAttributes();
                    attributes.XmlElements.Add(new XmlElementAttribute(m.Name));
                    Type1overrides.Add(typeof(Type1), m.Name, attributes);
                    extraTypesForType1.Add(m.MemberType.GetType());
                }

            }

            XmlSerializer type1Serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Type1), Type1overrides, extraTypesForType1.ToArray(),root,"");

            //Type2 => XmlAttributeOverrides
            Type objType2 = type1.GetType();
            System.Reflection.MemberInfo[] objType2Member = objType1.GetMembers();

            List<Type> extraTypesForType2 = new List<Type>();

            XmlAttributeOverrides Type2overrides = new XmlAttributeOverrides();
            foreach (System.Reflection.MemberInfo m in objType2Member)
            {
                if (m.MemberType.Equals(System.Reflection.MemberTypes.Property))
                {
                    XmlAttributes attributes = new XmlAttributes();
                    attributes.XmlElements.Add(new XmlElementAttribute(m.Name));
                    Type2overrides.Add(typeof(Type2), m.Name, attributes);
                    extraTypesForType2.Add(m.MemberType.GetType());
                }

            }

            XmlSerializer type2Deserializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Type2), Type2overrides, extraTypesForType2.ToArray(),root,"");

            type1Serializer.Serialize(objectStream, type1);
            objectStream.Position = 0;

            Type2 t = (Type2)type2Deserializer.Deserialize(objectStream);
            return t;
        }

Now create Book class Object and call function ConvertType1ToType2.

Book book = new Book();
            book.Title = "Introduction to c#";
            book.Publisher = "John Smith";
            book.Year = "2012";

 Book1 book1 = ConvertType1ToType2<Book, Book1>(book);

Hope this solution may work.

Thanks for your approach. I was wondering, since we're using reflection I think we can skip the serialization part and set the objects directly? — adentum, Sep 11 '12 at 09:07

How to deserialize xml ignoring differences in node types(i.e whether XmlElement or XmlAttribute)

2 Answers2