How to deserialize xml to object [duplicate]

Question

This question already has an answer here:

• Convert XML String to Object 11 answers

<StepList>
  <Step>
    <Name>Name1</Name>
    <Desc>Desc1</Desc>
  </Step>
  <Step>
    <Name>Name2</Name>
    <Desc>Desc2</Desc>
  </Step>
</StepList>

I have this XML, How should i model the Class so i will be able to deserialize it using XmlSerializer object?

Answer 1

Your classes should look like this

[XmlRoot("StepList")]
public class StepList
{
    [XmlElement("Step")]
    public List<Step> Steps { get; set; }
}

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

Here is my testcode.

string testData = @"<StepList>
                        <Step>
                            <Name>Name1</Name>
                            <Desc>Desc1</Desc>
                        </Step>
                        <Step>
                            <Name>Name2</Name>
                            <Desc>Desc2</Desc>
                        </Step>
                    </StepList>";

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(StepList));
using (TextReader reader = new StringReader(testData))
{
    StepList result = (StepList) serializer.Deserialize(reader);
}

If you want to read a text file you should load the file into a FileStream and deserialize this.

using (FileStream fileStream = new FileStream("<PathToYourFile>", FileMode.Open)) 
{
    StepList result = (StepList) serializer.Deserialize(fileStream);
}

Answer 2

The comments above are correct. You're missing the decorators. If you want a generic deserializer you can use this.

    public static T DeserializeXMLFileToObject<T>(string XmlFilename)
    {
        T returnObject = default(T);
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(XmlFilename)) return default(T);

        try
        {
            StreamReader xmlStream = new StreamReader(XmlFilename);
            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
            returnObject = (T)serializer.Deserialize(xmlStream);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            ExceptionLogger.WriteExceptionToConsole(ex, DateTime.Now);
        }
        return returnObject;
    }

Then you'd call it like this:

MyObjType MyObj = DeserializeXMLFileToObject<MyObjType>(FilePath);