How to Deserialize XML document

Question

How do I Deserialize this XML document:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Cars>
  <Car>
    <StockNumber>1020</StockNumber>
    <Make>Nissan</Make>
    <Model>Sentra</Model>
  </Car>
  <Car>
    <StockNumber>1010</StockNumber>
    <Make>Toyota</Make>
    <Model>Corolla</Model>
  </Car>
  <Car>
    <StockNumber>1111</StockNumber>
    <Make>Honda</Make>
    <Model>Accord</Model>
  </Car>
</Cars>

I have this:

[Serializable()]
public class Car
{
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("StockNumber")]
    public string StockNumber{ get; set; }

    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("Make")]
    public string Make{ get; set; }

    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("Model")]
    public string Model{ get; set; }
}

.

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute("Cars", Namespace = "", IsNullable = false)]
public class Cars
{
    [XmlArrayItem(typeof(Car))]
    public Car[] Car { get; set; }

}

.

public class CarSerializer
{
    public Cars Deserialize()
    {
        Cars[] cars = null;
        string path = HttpContext.Current.ApplicationInstance.Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/") + "cars.xml";

        XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Cars[]));

        StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(path);
        reader.ReadToEnd();
        cars = (Cars[])serializer.Deserialize(reader);
        reader.Close();

        return cars;
    }
}

that don't seem to work :-(

Answer 1

string employeedata = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?><tag><name>test</bar></nmae>";//demo xml data
        using (TextReader sr = new StringReader(employeedata))
        {
            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Employee));//pass type name in XmlSerializer constructor here
            Employee response = (Employee)serializer.Deserialize(sr);
            Console.WriteLine(response.name);
        }

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRoot("tag")]
public class Employee
{
    public string name { get; set; }
}

Answer 2

If you're getting errors using xsd.exe to create your xsd file, then use the XmlSchemaInference class as mentioned on msdn. Here's a unit test to demonstrate:

using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Schema;

[TestMethod]
public void GenerateXsdFromXmlTest()
{
    string folder = @"C:\mydir\mydata\xmlToCSharp";
    XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(folder + "\some_xml.xml");
    XmlSchemaSet schemaSet = new XmlSchemaSet();
    XmlSchemaInference schema = new XmlSchemaInference();

    schemaSet = schema.InferSchema(reader);


    foreach (XmlSchema s in schemaSet.Schemas())
    {
        XmlWriter xsdFile = new XmlTextWriter(folder + "\some_xsd.xsd", System.Text.Encoding.UTF8);
        s.Write(xsdFile);
        xsdFile.Close();
    }
}

// now from the visual studio command line type: xsd some_xsd.xsd /classes

Answer 3

My solution:

1. Use Edit > Past Special > Paste XML As Classes to get the class in your code
2. Try something like this: create a list of that class (List<class1>), then use the XmlSerializer to serialize that list to a xml file.
3. Now you just replace the body of that file with your data and try to deserialize it.

Code:

StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(@"C:\Users\duongngh\Desktop\Newfolder\abc.txt");
XmlSerializer xml = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Class1[]));
var a = xml.Deserialize(sr);
sr.Close();

NOTE: you must pay attention to the root name, don't change it. Mine is "ArrayOfClass1"

Answer 4

You can just change one attribute for you Cars car property from XmlArrayItem to XmlElment. That is, from

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute("Cars", Namespace = "", IsNullable = false)]
public class Cars
{
    [XmlArrayItem(typeof(Car))]
    public Car[] Car { get; set; }
}

to

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute("Cars", Namespace = "", IsNullable = false)]
public class Cars
{
    [XmlElement("Car")]
    public Car[] Car { get; set; }
}