List Collection XML Serialization

Question

I've been playing around with the xml serialization for a while and I've hit a problem with serializing the a list collection. I want to serialize a list collection without the upper element wrapping around it. See example below:

Result serialization:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Person>
  <Name>John</Name>
  <AddressLine>
    <string>Line 1</string>
    <string>Line 2</string>
    <string>Line 3</string>
  </AddressLine>
  <Telephone>123456789</Telephone>
</Person>

The serialization I want to output is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Person>
  <Name>John</Name>
  <AddressLine>Line 1</AddressLine>
  <AddressLine>Line 2</AddressLine>
  <AddressLine>Line 3</AddressLine>
  <Telephone>123456789</Telephone>
</Person>

I have tried setting different the attributes to my class I'm serializaing from but I can't seem to get anywhere with it. If anyone could show me what attributes I need to use to get my xml serialization to look like the ouput xml I want that would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

Kirill Polishchuk · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-13T11:55:53.567

4

[Serializable]
public class Person
{
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [XmlElement]
    public List<string> AddressLine { get; set; }
}

Produces desired output:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Person xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Name>John</Name>
  <AddressLine>1</AddressLine>
  <AddressLine>2</AddressLine>
  <AddressLine>3</AddressLine>
</Person>

edited Jul 13 '11 at 11:55

answered Jul 13 '11 at 11:39

Kirill Polishchuk

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Thanks for the help. I don't suppose you could explain what the serializer is dioing to that property with the xml attributes setting the elementname to nothing? – madness800 Jul 13 '11 at 11:52
@madness800, You can just set `[XmlElement]` without initializing `ElementName` – Kirill Polishchuk Jul 13 '11 at 11:57

List Collection XML Serialization

1 Answers1