How to rename XML attribute that generated after serializing List of objects

Question

I am serializing List of objects List , and XmlSerializer generates attribute, I want rename it or rem

Answer 1

Create another class like :

       [XmlRoot("TestObjects")]
       public class TestObjects: List<TestObject>
       {

       }

Then apply below code while sealizing :

            XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(TestObjects));
            MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();
            serializer.Serialize(memStream, tmpList);

Answer 2

You can add an additional parameter to the XmlSerializer constructor to essentially name the root element.

XmlSerializer xsSubmit = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<DropDownOption>), new XmlRootAttribute("DropDownOptions"));

This would result in the following structure:

<DropDownOptions xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> 
    <DropDownOption>
      <ID>1</ID>
      <Description>foo</Description>
    </DropDownOption>
    <DropDownOption>
      <ID>2</ID>
      <Description>bar</Description>
    </DropDownOption>
</DropDownOptions>

Answer 3

The most reliable way is to declare an outermost DTO class:

[XmlRoot("myOuterElement")]
public class MyOuterMessage {
    [XmlElement("item")]
    public List<TestObject> Items {get;set;}
}

and serialize that (i.e. put your list into another object).

---

You can avoid a wrapper class, but I wouldn't:

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<Foo>),
             new XmlRootAttribute("Flibble"));
        List<Foo> foos = new List<Foo> {
            new Foo {Bar = "abc"},
            new Foo {Bar = "def"}
        };
        ser.Serialize(Console.Out, foos);
    }
}

public class Foo
{
    public string Bar { get; set; }
}

The problem with this is that when you use custom attributes you need to be very careful to store and re-use the serializer, otherwise you get lots of dynamic assemblies loaded into memory. This is avoided if you just use the XmlSerializer(Type) constructor, as it caches this internally automatically.

Answer 4

Change the following line from:

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<TestObject>));

To:

XmlRootAttribute root = new XmlRootAttribute("TestObjects");     

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<TestObject>), root);

It should work.