.Net Xml Deserialization - Support Multiple Namespaces

Question

Hello,

I need to support XML deserialization of two very similar, yet different xml files.

File 1:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<lr:LogReport xmlns:dcml="http://www.x1.org/schemas/Types/"
    xmlns:ds="http://www.x3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"
    xmlns:lr="http://www.x.org/schemas/LogRecord/"
    xmlns:xs="http://www.x3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.x3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"&gt;
    <lr:reportDate>2010-03-05T07:00:52-08:00</lr:reportDate>

File 2:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>
<LogReport xmlns="http://www.x.org/schemas/LogRecord" 
    xmlns:dcml="http://www.x1.org/schemas/Types" 
    xmlns:ds="http://www.x3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" 
    xmlns:lr="http://www.x.org/schemas/LogRecord" 
    xmlns:xs="http://www.x3.org/2001/XMLSchema" 
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.x3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.x.org/schemas/LogRecord ./LogRecord.xsd  http://www.x1.org/schemas/Types ./Types.xsd">
    <lr:reportDate>2010-02-26T07:00:02-08:00</lr:reportDate>

Class Definition:

<System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.42"), _
 System.SerializableAttribute(), _
 System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute(), _
 System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code"), _
 System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute([Namespace]:="http://www.smpte-ra.org/schemas/430-4/2008/LogRecord"), _
 System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute("LogReport", [Namespace]:="http://www.smpte-ra.org/schemas/430-4/2008/LogRecord", IsNullable:=False)> _
Partial Public Class LogReport

Files matching File1 fail while files matching File2 succeed. The key difference is the trailing slash two of the namespace definitions.

Code Sample:

Dim oLogReport As New LogReport
Dim oType As System.Type = oLogReport.GetType
Dim oReader As System.Xml.XmlReader = Nothing
Dim oSerializer As New XmlSerializer(oType)
oReader = System.Xml.XmlReader.Create(sFileName)
oLogReport = CType(oSerializer.Deserialize(oReader), LogReport)

Error from File1:

{"<LogReport xmlns='http://www.x.org/schemas/LogRecord/'&gt; was not expected."}

Already tried: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1254544/how-do-i-specify-xml-serialization-attributes-to-support-namespace-prefixes-durin

These files come from a third-party so I cannot change the serialization process. Is there a way I can support both xml formats? Do I need two separate classes?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Two separate class models is an option, although admittedly not a very good one.

Do you actually get these files as XML that you then process in code, or are you using smoe sort of proxy that's supposed to auto-deserialize the XML?

If you're doing your own deserialization, I would consider creating a simple XSL Transform to convert the namespaces in-memory before executing the deserialization. A transform to simply replace one pair of namespaces with another pair will be pretty short and simple.

Answer 2

If the namespaces are different, then the XML is different.