将枚举序列化/反序列化为元素名称（而不是元素的内容/值）

Question

I need to deserialize/serialize XML which looks like this:

<color>
    <green/>
</color>

where <green/> may be <red/> , <blue/> etc. - very large (but limited) set.

I'd like to describe it as simple enum in my code:

enum ColorName
{
    [XmlEnum("red")]
    Red,
    [XmlEnum("green")]
    Green,
    [XmlEnum("blue")]
    Blue,

    ...
    etc.
}

But, if I write my object model like this:

class Color
{
    [XmlElement("name")]
    public ColorName ColorName;
}

class Something
{
    [XmlElement("color")]
    public Color Color;
}

enum gets into XML as a value, rather than element name:

<color>
    <name>green</name>
</color>

Is there any way to get enum value written into XML element name (see the first XML snippet - that's the goal), rather than XML element value , without having to re-type all the values (it's a very large set) as empty class names, or resorting to custom serialization (I would like to avoid it, because serialized class contains a lot of other members, which are perfectly serialized by default)?

(I can't change the schema, it's third-party).

Answer 1

No, this is not supported by simply decorading your classes with [Xml*] attributes. You will have to implement IXmlSerializable on Something and do it yourself. Note that in most cases you don't have to bother with the GetSchema method; implementing ReadXml and WriteXml is just fine.