How can I get this XML Structure

Question

I have a web service that has an input object similar to the following.

public class MyInput
{
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlArrayItem("Demographic")]
    public DemographicsInfo[] Demographics {get; set;}
}

With the definition of the DemographicsInfo class like this.

public class DemographicsInfo
{
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlAttributeAttribute()]
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Value { get; set; }
}

Right now this generates an XML structure like this.

<Demographics>
    <Demographic Name="String">
        <value>string</value>
    </Demographic>
    <Demographic Name="String">
        <value>string</value>
    </Demographic>
</Demographics>

I need to get it into this

<Demographics>
    <Demographic Name="String">string</Demographic>
    <Demographic Name="String">string</Demographic>
</Demographics>

For the life of me, I cannot seem to find the proper attribute(s) to apply to get this format. Does anyone have any advice?

Answer 1

If you know the structure you want, the simplest option is to work back from the xml; write the xml into a file (foo.xml in my case), then (at the command line):

xsd foo.xml
xsd foo.xsd /classes

Then look at foo.cs to see how it can be done; it turns out that you simply mark the value with [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTextAttribute()].

Here's the xsd output:

//------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// <auto-generated>
//     This code was generated by a tool.
//     Runtime Version:2.0.50727.3053
//
//     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=2.0.50727.3038.
// 


/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.3038")]
[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 Demographics {

    private DemographicsDemographic[] itemsField;

    /// <remarks/>
    [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute("Demographic", Form=System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, IsNullable=true)]
    public DemographicsDemographic[] Items {
        get {
            return this.itemsField;
        }
        set {
            this.itemsField = value;
        }
    }
}

/// <remarks/>
[System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("xsd", "2.0.50727.3038")]
[System.SerializableAttribute()]
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
[System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")]
[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType=true)]
public partial class DemographicsDemographic {

    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.XmlTextAttribute()]
    public string Value {
        get {
            return this.valueField;
        }
        set {
            this.valueField = value;
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

Looking a bit on what Marc has, but I'm guessing a difference between Visual Studio 2005 and 2008.

I needed to add the following to the declaration of the "Value" element.

[System.Xml.Serialization.XmlText()]
public string Value { get; set; }

It looks like it works!