XMLSerializer Deserialization - array element order

Question

We are using XMLSerializer.Deserialize(XMLReader) on .Net 4.5 to deserialize XML into an Object Graph generated by xsd.exe.

I would like to know what the expected deserialization behavior is for an array which is annotated with the XMLElementAttribute - specifically with regard to ordering. For example:

For the following property:

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("GivenName")]
  public string[] GivenName {
 // get() and set() methods
}

And the following XML:

<root>
  <GivenName>One</GivenName>
  <GivenName>Two</GivenName>
  <GivenName>Three</GivenName>
</root>

Will this always deserialize as ['One', 'Two', 'Three']

So that the array order always matches the XML order

Also is there any documentation I can reference that clearly states this.

Thanks

Rob

Answer 1

Yes Its deserialize same order. Check the code sample code and output:

 [System.SerializableAttribute()]
public class SampleClass
{
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Order = 10)]
    public string Foo { get; set; }
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Order = 5)]
    public string Bar { get; set; }
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("GivenName", Order = 15)]
    public string[] GivenNames { get; set; }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        string[] names = new string[3] { "One", "Two", "Three" };

        SampleClass TestObj = new SampleClass { Bar = "dsdfsdf", Foo = "test", GivenNames = names };
        XmlSerializer SerializerObj = new XmlSerializer(typeof(SampleClass));
        // Create a new file stream to write the serialized object to a file
        TextWriter WriteFileStream = new StreamWriter(@"C:\files\test.xml");
        SerializerObj.Serialize(WriteFileStream, TestObj);
        // Cleanup
        WriteFileStream.Close();

        // Create a new file stream for reading the XML file
        FileStream ReadFileStream = new FileStream(@"C:\files\test.xml", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read);

        // Load the object saved above by using the Deserialize function
        SampleClass LoadedObj = (SampleClass)SerializerObj.Deserialize(ReadFileStream);

        // Cleanup
        ReadFileStream.Close();


    }
}

Answer 2

You can find some awesome information about it on msdn which is provide by microsoft.

This is the "official" documentation

The serialization is linear so you will alway get the same order normally.