Deserialize XML file with variable structure

Question

i need to deserilize an XML file, which has a variable structure. Two example's:

<xml>
    <OrgUnit GUID="1111">
        <OrgUnit GUID="2222">
            <OrgUnit GUID="3333" />
            <OrgUnit GUID="4444" />
            ...
        </OrgUnit>
    </OrgUnit>
</xml>

<xml>
    <OrgUnit GUID="1111" />
    <OrgUnit GUID="2222" />
    <OrgUnit GUID="3333">
        <OrgUnit GUID="4444" />
        <OrgUnit GUID="5555" />
    </OrgUnit>
</xml>

...

As you can see, the element names are always the same. The problem is, that the nesting of the elements varys all the time. Is there any way to implement this with XmlSerializer?

Darin Dimitrov · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-20 11:40:09Z

3

public class xml
{
    [XmlElement("OrgUnit")]
    public OrgUnit[] OrgUnits { get; set; }
}

public class OrgUnit
{
    [XmlAttribute]
    public int GUID { get; set; }

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

and then:

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(xml));
        using (var reader = XmlReader.Create("test.xml"))
        {
            var result = (xml)serializer.Deserialize(reader);
        }
    }
}

It will work with any nesting depths of OrgUnit.

answered Jul 20, 2012 at 11:40

Darin Dimitrov

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Comments

Myrtle · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-20 11:47:35Z

When using xml documents as the starting point I always prefer an xsd as the contract between the file and the parsing code. Note that I have used 'OrgUnits' as the root node.

You can use xsd.exe to create serializable classes for you.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" elementFormDefault="qualified">
  <xs:element name="OrgUnits">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element maxOccurs="unbounded" ref="OrgUnit"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="OrgUnit">
    <xs:complexType mixed="true">
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" ref="OrgUnit"/>
      </xs:sequence>
      <xs:attribute name="GUID" use="required" type="xs:integer"/>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
</xs:schema>

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