How to Deserialize XMLDocument to object in C#?

Question

I have a .Net webserivce that accepts XML in string format. XML String sent into the webserivce can represent any Object in the system. I need to check

Answer 1

If you have an XmlDocument, you can use XmlNodeReader as an XmlReader to pass to XmlSerializer, but I wonder if it would be better to do it the other way; use an XmlReader to get the outermost element name, and give that to XmlSerializer...

[XmlRoot("foo")]
public class Foo
{
    [XmlAttribute("id")]
    public int Id { get; set; }
}
static class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        string xml = "<foo id='123'/>";
        object obj;
        using (XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create(new StringReader(xml)))
        {
            reader.MoveToContent();
            switch (reader.Name)
            {
                case "foo":
                    obj = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Foo)).Deserialize(reader);
                    break;
                default:
                    throw new NotSupportedException("Unexpected: " + reader.Name);
            }
        }            
    }
}

Answer 2

Don't forget a powerfull contender, LINQ to XML!

XElement root = XElement.Load(myfile);

var foos = root.Descendants("Foo").Where(e => e.Attribute("bar") != null);