xmlNode to objects

Question

Hi,

I have been working with a 3rd party java based REST webservice, that returns an array of xmlNodes.

The xmlNode[] respresent an object and I am trying to work out the best way to Deserialize the xmlNode[] in the object? is it to build up a xmlDocument first and the Deserialize ?

Thanks

Answer 1

The easiest way to do this would be to use the built in System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer class in .NET. A google search on XmlSerializer will provide a ton of tutorials that you can use to find a tutorial that works for you.

Answer 2

If you have the WCF Rest Starter Kit preview installed, there's a neat trick:

• open Visual Studio
• select your XML node contents (the XML that makes up one of your nodes) and copy it to the clipboard
• from your "Edit" menu in Visual Studio, pick "Paste XML as Types"

This will paste your XML that's on the clipboard into your project as a C# class that is capable of deserializing that exact XML. Pretty nifty!

See these blog posts about it:

• Aaron Skonnard: WCF REST Starter Kit: Paste XML as Types
• "Paste XML as Types" in REST Starter Kit

That should save you a lot of typing and make life a lot easier!

UPDATE:
OK, you already have your classes generated from the XML you get back. Now you need to convert a XmlNode to your class.

You'll have to do something like this:

private static T ConvertNode<T>(XmlNode node) where T: class
{
    MemoryStream stm = new MemoryStream();

    StreamWriter stw = new StreamWriter(stm);
    stw.Write(node.OuterXml);
    stw.Flush();

    stm.Position = 0;

    XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T));
    T result = (ser.Deserialize(stm) as T);

    return result;
}

You need to write the XML representation (property .OuterXml) of the XmlNode to a stream (here a MemoryStream) and then use the XmlSerializer to serialize back the object from that stream.

You can do it with the generic method and call

 Customer myCustomer = ConvertNode<Customer>(xmlNode);

or you could even turn that code into either an extension method on the XmlNode class so you could write:

 Customer myCustomer = xmlNode.ConvertNode<Customer>();

Marc

Answer 3

Nice and neat solution marc_s, thanks a lot!