在XML序列化期间跳过类层次结构级别

Question

I want to serialize a class into:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<documents>
  <document>
    <element />
    ...
  </document>
  ....
</documents>

I have been experimenting with the following class hierarchy:

public class A
{
    [XmlArrayItem("document")]
    public List<B> documents = new List<B>();
}

public class B
{
    public string id;

    [XmlArray("element")]
    public List<C> elements = new List<C>();
}

public class C
{
    public string name;
    public string value;
}

Unfortunately, what I get is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<A>
  <documents>
    <document>
      <element />
    </document>
  </documents>
</A>

So how do I get rid of "A", ie the type name of the outmost class?

A broader question would be, how can this be generalized? How can I skip arbitrary "levels" within my class hierarchies during serialization?

Answer 1

The outer-most class is called the "root". You have to use [XmlRoot] to set it.

However, then you also have to use [XmlElement] on documents instead of [XmlArrayItem] in order to make it the sub-level of the root.