Deserializing xml with inner array

Question

I'm trying to deserialize simple xml file:

<thesaurus xmlns="http://marklogic.com/xdmp/thesaurus">
    <metadata>
    </metadata>
    <entry>
        <term>a</term>
            <synonym>
                <term>as</term>
            </synonym>
    </entry>
    <entry>
        <term>b</term>
            <synonym>
                <term>bs</term>
            </synonym>
            <synonym>
                <term>bss</term>
            </synonym>
    </entry>
</thesaurus>

I'm using XmlSerializer like this:

var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Thesaurus));

var thesaurus = xmlSerializer.Deserialize(stream);

My model looks like this:

[Serializable]
[XmlRoot("thesaurus", Namespace = "http://marklogic.com/xdmp/thesaurus")]
public class Thesaurus
{
    [XmlElement("metadata")]
    public Metadata Metadata { get; set; }
    [XmlElement("entry")]
    public List<Entry> Entries { get; set; }
}

public class Metadata
{

}
public class Entry
{
    [XmlElement("term")]
    public string Term { get; set; }
    [XmlElement("synonym")]
    public String[] Synonym { get; set; }
}

So when I'm running this code, I get deserialized thesaurus object with parsed metadata and 1 entry with filled term and synonym fields. I can't get all of the entries here.

BUT

when I comment out Synonym field it starts giving me 2 entries in thesaurus object. I can't wrap entries in <entries> tag because it's some internal format of an application I'm feeding with this xml file.

Anyone has any ideas how to parse this xml file correctly? I tried searching for a solution, but this xml looks quite different than ones in examples.

Answer 1

Ok, so if you need to keep inside synonim field array of terms fields you need to change your Entry class to something like this:

public class Entry
{
     [XmlElement("term")]
     public string Term { get; set; }            

     [XmlElement("synonim")]
     public Term[] Synonym { get; set; }
}

also you'll need to add additional one:

public class Term
{
    [XmlElement("term")]
    public string Value { get; set; }
}

This way you'll have what you need. So, additional hierarchy level was added by additional class.

Please find below code for your test:

        var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Thesaurus));

        var r = new Thesaurus();
        r.Entries = new List<Entry>();
        r.Metadata = new Metadata();

        r.Entries.Add(new Entry()
        {
            Synonym = new Term[] { new Term(){Value = "1"}, new Term() {Value = "2"},   },
            Term = "Term1"
        });

        r.Entries.Add(new Entry()
        {
            Synonym = new Term[] { new Term() { Value = "3" }, new Term() { Value = "4" }, },
            Term = "Term2"
        });

        using (TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(@"c:\111.xml"))
        {
            xmlSerializer.Serialize(writer, r);
            writer.Close();
        }


        using (TextReader reader = new StreamReader(@"c:\111.xml"))
        {
            Thesaurus tt = xmlSerializer.Deserialize(reader) as Thesaurus;
            Console.Write(tt.Entries.Count);
            reader.Close();
        }