Deserialize XML into a C# object

Question

How can I desearlize the below CatalogProduct tags into my CatalogProduct object using C#?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<CatalogProducts>
    <CatalogProduct Name="MyName1" Version="1.1.0"/>
    <CatalogProduct Name="MyName2" Version="1.1.0"/>
</CatalogProducts>

Note i don't have a CatalogProducts object so want to skip that element when pulling back the into to deserialize

Thanks

Answer 1

var xml = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>" +
    "<CatalogProducts>" +
        "<CatalogProduct Name=\"MyName1\" Version=\"1.1.0\"/>" +
        "<CatalogProduct Name=\"MyName2\" Version=\"1.1.0\"/>" +
    "</CatalogProducts>";
var document = XDocument.Parse(xml);

IEnumerable<CatalogProduct> catalogProducts =
        from c in productsXml.Descendants("CatalogProduct")
        select new CatalogProduct
        {
            Name = c.Attribute("Name").Value,
            Version = c.Attribute("Version").Value
        };

Answer 2

Just for your information, here's an example how to really serialize and deserialize an object:

private CatalogProduct Load()
{
    var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(CatalogProduct));
    using (var xmlReader = new XmlTextReader("CatalogProduct.xml"))
    {
        if (serializer.CanDeserialize(xmlReader))
        {
            return serializer.Deserialize(xmlReader) as CatalogProduct;
        }
    }
}

private void Save(CatalogProduct cp)
{
    using (var fileStream = new FileStream("CatalogProduct.xml", FileMode.Create))
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(CatalogProduct));
        serializer.Serialize(fileStream, cp);
    }
}

Answer 3

The canonical method would be to use the xsd.exe tool twice. First, to create a schema from your example XML as so:

xsd.exe file.xml will generate file.xsd.

Then:

xsd.exe /c file.xsd will generate file.cs.

File.cs will be the object(s) you can deserialize your XML from using any one of the techniques that you can easily find here, eg this .

Answer 4

Without "CatalogProduct" object i think it's very difficult, maybe with the dynamic type of .net 4.0 it's possible, but i'm not sure.

The only way i know, is to utilize the XmlSerializer class with Deserialize method, but you need the object CatalogProduct.

I hope the following link is useful: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alexghi/archive/2008/12/22/using-anonymous-types-to-deserialize-json-data.aspx

Answer 5

Assuming your CatalogProduct object looks something like this:

    public class CatalogProduct {
        public string Name;
        public string Version;
    }

I think Linq to Xml will be the simplest and fastest way for you

var cps1 = new[] { new CatalogProduct { Name = "Name 1", Version = "Version 1" },
                 new CatalogProduct { Name = "Name 2", Version = "Version 2" } };

var xml = new XElement("CatalogProducts", 
            from c in cps1
            select new XElement("CatalogProduct", 
                new XAttribute("Name", c.Name),
                new XAttribute("Version", c.Version)));

    // Use the following to deserialize you objects
var cps2 = xml.Elements("CatalogProduct").Select(x =>
    new CatalogProduct { 
        Name = (string)x.Attribute("Name"),
        Version = (string)x.Attribute("Version") }).ToArray();

Please note that .NET offers true object graph serialization which I have not shown