Iterate through deserialized xml object

Question

I have a deserialized xml c# objet. I need to iterate through the oject to display all items, in this case there's just one, and display the name, colors and sizes for each item.

The xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Catalog Name="Example">
  <Items>
    <Item Name="ExampleItem">
      <Colors>
        <Color Name="Black" Value="#000" />
        <Color Name="White" Value="#FFF" />
      </Colors>
      <Sizes>
        <Size Name="Small" Value="10"  />
        <Size Name="Medium" Value="20"  />
      </Sizes>
    </Item>
  </Items>
</Catalog>

xsd.exe generated classes:

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// <auto-generated>
//     This code was generated by a tool.
//     Runtime Version:2.0.50727.4927
//
//     Changes to this file may cause incorrect behavior and will be lost if
//     the code is regenerated.
// </auto-generated>
//------------------------------------------------------------------------------

using System.Xml.Serialization;

// 
// This source code was auto-generated by xsd, Version=2.0.50727.42.
// 


/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.42")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType=true)]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute(Namespace="", IsNullable=false)]
public partial class Catalog {

    private CatalogItemsItem[][] itemsField;

    private string nameField;

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayAttribute(Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified)]
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayItemAttribute("Item", typeof(CatalogItemsItem[]), Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, IsNullable=false)]
    public CatalogItemsItem[][] Items {
        get {
            return this.itemsField;
        }
        set {
            this.itemsField = value;
        }
    }

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
    public string Name {
        get {
            return this.nameField;
        }
        set {
            this.nameField = value;
        }
    }
}

/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.42")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType=true)]
public partial class CatalogItemsItem {

    private CatalogItemsItemColorsColor[][] colorsField;

    private CatalogItemsItemSizesSize[][] sizesField;

    private string nameField;

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayAttribute(Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified)]
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayItemAttribute("Color", typeof(CatalogItemsItemColorsColor[]), Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, IsNullable=false)]
    public CatalogItemsItemColorsColor[][] Colors {
        get {
            return this.colorsField;
        }
        set {
            this.colorsField = value;
        }
    }

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayAttribute(Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified)]
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayItemAttribute("Size", typeof(CatalogItemsItemSizesSize[]), Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, IsNullable=false)]
    public CatalogItemsItemSizesSize[][] Sizes {
        get {
            return this.sizesField;
        }
        set {
            this.sizesField = value;
        }
    }

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
    public string Name {
        get {
            return this.nameField;
        }
        set {
            this.nameField = value;
        }
    }
}

/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.42")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType=true)]
public partial class CatalogItemsItemColorsColor {

    private string nameField;

    private string valueField;

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
    public string Name {
        get {
            return this.nameField;
        }
        set {
            this.nameField = value;
        }
    }

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
    public string Value {
        get {
            return this.valueField;
        }
        set {
            this.valueField = value;
        }
    }
}

/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.42")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType=true)]
public partial class CatalogItemsItemSizesSize {

    private string nameField;

    private string valueField;

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
    public string Name {
        get {
            return this.nameField;
        }
        set {
            this.nameField = value;
        }
    }

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
    public string Value {
        get {
            return this.valueField;
        }
        set {
            this.valueField = value;
        }
    }
}

/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.42")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType=true)]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute(Namespace="", IsNullable=false)]
public partial class NewDataSet {

    private Catalog[] itemsField;

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("Catalog")]
    public Catalog[] Items {
        get {
            return this.itemsField;
        }
        set {
            this.itemsField = value;
        }
    }
}

Deserialization code:

    System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer xSerializer = new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(typeof(Catalog));
            TextReader reader = new StreamReader("catalog.xml");
            Catalog catalog = (Catalog)xSerializer.Deserialize(reader);
            foreach (var item in catalog.Items)
            {


            }


   reader.Close();

When I setp through the code there is one item present in catalog.items, but it is empty, no name, colors or sizes.

Any ideas what I need to do?

Thanks

Answer 1

XSD isn't perfect - and in this case, it definitely gets it wrong!

In my case, I had code like this:

public partial class Catalog {
    private CatalogItemsItem[][] itemsField;
    private string nameField;

    /// <remarks/>
    [XmlArray(Form=XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified)]
    [XmlArrayItem("Item", typeof(CatalogItemsItem), 
     Form=XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, IsNullable=false)]
    public CatalogItemsItem[][] Items {
        get {


......    

public partial class CatalogItemsItem {
    private CatalogItemsItemColorsColor[][] colorsField;
    private CatalogItemsItemSizesSize[][] sizesField;

Those "arrays of arrays" are a typical error you sometimes encounter with XSD. I couldn't even deserialize your test XML !

Once I changed this to just simple one-dimensional arrays, everything works just fine.

public partial class Catalog {
    private CatalogItemsItem[] itemsField;
    private string nameField;

    /// <remarks/>
    [XmlArray(Form=XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified)]
    [XmlArrayItem("Item", typeof(CatalogItemsItem), 
     Form=XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, IsNullable=false)]
    public CatalogItemsItem[] Items {
        get {


......    

public partial class CatalogItemsItem {
    private CatalogItemsItemColorsColor[] colorsField;
    private CatalogItemsItemSizesSize[] sizesField;

And no, I'm sorry, I don't know of any switch that would allow you to tell XSD to behave like this all the time - it's manual "after-the-generation-cleanup-work" that needs to be done here.

Answer 2

xsd.exe generated incorrect code. Your class is not too hard to do it by hand:

public class Color
{
    [XmlAttribute]
    public string Name;

    [XmlAttribute]
    public string Value;
}

public class Size
{
    [XmlAttribute]
    public string Name;

    [XmlAttribute]
    public string Value;
}

public class Item
{
    public Color[] Colors;

    public Size[] Sizes;
}

public class Catalog
{
    [XmlAttribute]
    public string Name;

    public Item[] Items;
}

Answer 3

If you're not attached to this particular approach and all you need to do is parse xml, I would highly recommend going the LINQ-to-xml route, it has made my life a lot easier.

The basics: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb387087.aspx