C# xml serialization remove jagged array element name

Question

I have the below classes:

public class MainRequest
{
    private Request _dataField;

    [XmlElementAttribute(\"Parameters\")]
    public Request Parameters         


        

Answer 1

Through experimentation, you'll have to rename Batch to BatchEntry (apparently you cannot combine XmlElement and XmlArrayItem) and then you can you the XmlArrayItem attribute with a name of "ParameterEntry".

This will work:

/* No idea why this a 2-d array... It doesn't match your XML */
[XmlArrayItem("ParameterEntry")]
public Field[] BatchEntry    //was Batch

Answer 2

It appears that what you’re trying to accomplish isn’t supported natively; there’s no way of applying an XmlElement attribute to a jagged array. See XmlSerializer bug when serializing collection of collections without root element?

However, what you can do is decompose your Field[][] jagged array into a simple array of a new type – let’s name it Batch – which would in turn contain an array of your Field type. The following code generates the XML you’re after:

public class MainRequest
{
    [XmlElementAttribute("Parameters")]
    public Request Parameters { get; set; }
}

public class Request
{
    [XmlElementAttribute(IsNullable = true)]
    public RequestSize RequestSize { get; set; }

    [XmlElement("BatchEntry")]
    public Batch[] Batches { get; set; }
}

public class RequestSize
{
    [XmlAttributeAttribute]
    public string Count { get; set; }

    [XmlTextAttribute]
    public string Value { get; set; }
}

public class Batch
{
    [XmlElementAttribute("ParameterEntry")]
    public Field[] Fields { get; set; }
}

public class Field
{
    [XmlAttributeAttribute(AttributeName = "name")]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [XmlTextAttribute]
    public string Value { get; set; }
}

public static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var request = new MainRequest
    {
        Parameters = new Request
        {
            RequestSize = new RequestSize
            {
                Count = "1",
                Value = "2",
            },
            Batches = new Batch[]
            {
                new Batch 
                { 
                    Fields = new Field[] 
                    { 
                        new Field { Name = "AAA", Value = "111"},
                        new Field { Name = "BBB", Value = "222"},
                        new Field { Name = "CCC", Value = "333"},
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    };

    using (var stream = new MemoryStream())
    using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
    {
        XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(MainRequest));
        serializer.Serialize(stream, request);

        stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
        var str = reader.ReadToEnd();
    }
}

Generated XML:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<MainRequest xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Parameters>
    <RequestSize Count="1">2</RequestSize>
    <BatchEntry>
      <ParameterEntry name="AAA">111</ParameterEntry>
      <ParameterEntry name="BBB">222</ParameterEntry>
      <ParameterEntry name="CCC">333</ParameterEntry>
    </BatchEntry>
  </Parameters>
</MainRequest>

The advantage of this approach is that it would still work if you define multiple batches. For example:

    var request = new MainRequest
    {
        Parameters = new Request
        {
            RequestSize = new RequestSize
            {
                Count = "2",
                Value = "5",
            },
            Batches = new Batch[]
            {
                new Batch 
                { 
                    Fields = new Field[] 
                    { 
                        new Field { Name = "AAA", Value = "111"},
                        new Field { Name = "BBB", Value = "222"},
                        new Field { Name = "CCC", Value = "333"},
                    }
                },
                new Batch 
                { 
                    Fields = new Field[] 
                    { 
                        new Field { Name = "DDD", Value = "444"},
                        new Field { Name = "EEE", Value = "555"},
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    };

…would generate:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<MainRequest xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Parameters>
    <RequestSize Count="2">5</RequestSize>
    <BatchEntry>
      <ParameterEntry name="AAA">111</ParameterEntry>
      <ParameterEntry name="BBB">222</ParameterEntry>
      <ParameterEntry name="CCC">333</ParameterEntry>
    </BatchEntry>
    <BatchEntry>
      <ParameterEntry name="DDD">444</ParameterEntry>
      <ParameterEntry name="EEE">555</ParameterEntry>
    </BatchEntry>
  </Parameters>
</MainRequest>

Answer 3

Try something like

    [XmlIgnore]
    public Field[][] Batch
    {
        get
        {
            return _field;
        }
        set
        {
            _field = value;
        }
    }
    [XmlArrayItemAttribute("ParameterEntry", IsNullable = false)]
    public Field[] BatchEntry
    {
        get
        {
            List<Field> OneDimFields = new List<Field>();
            foreach(Field[] field in _field)
            {
                OneDimFields.AddRange(field);
            }
            return OneDimFields.ToArray(); 
        }
    }