C# XML deserialization problem

Question

I have the following XML snippet:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<dmFiles>
   <dmFile dmUpFileGuid="" 
           dmFileDescr="testcase01.pdf" 
           dmFileMetaType="main" 
           dmFileGuid="" 
           dmMimeType="pdf" 
           dmFormat="">
              <dmEncodedContent></dmEncodedContent>
   </dmFile>
</dmFiles>

When I try to deserialize it, nothing gets populated, my c# class is defined like this, please help me spot my logic flaw:

[Serializable]
public class dmFiles
{

    public dmFile[] dmFile
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

}


public class dmFile
{
    [XmlAttribute("dmUpFileGuid")]
    public string dmUpFileGuid
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    [XmlAttribute("dmFileDescr")]
    public string dmFileDescr
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    [XmlAttribute("dmFileMetaType")]
    public string dmFileMetaType
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    [XmlAttribute("dmFileGuid")]
    public string dmFileGuid
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    [XmlAttribute("dmMimeType")]
    public string dmMimeType
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    [XmlAttribute("dmFormat")]
    public string dmFormat
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    [XmlElement]
    public string dmEncodedContent
    {
        get;
        set;
    }
}

Answer 1

I expect the array is expecting two levels of elements; try:

[XmlElement("dmFile")]
public dmFile[] dmFile
{
    get;
    set;
}

(which tells it to use a single level of elements called "dmFile" for the array contents)

btw, you can name your classes more naturally by adding attributes to control naming; for example:

[XmlRoot("dmFiles")] // don't normally need [Serializable]
public class FilesWrapper // whatever you want
{ ... }

For info, I tested it and it works fine:

using(XmlReader xr = XmlReader.Create(new StringReader(sampleXml))) {
    XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(dmFiles));
    dmFiles obj = (dmFiles)ser.Deserialize(xr);
    // obj has 1 file, with all the correct properties set
}