Change the order of elements when serializing XML

Hannes_hal picture Hannes_hal · Jun 23, 2011 · Viewed 20.4k times · Source

I need to serialize an Object to XML and back. The XML is fix and I can't change it. I fail to generate this structure after bookingList.

How can I "group" these <booking> elements to appear as a LIST and keep <error> & <counter> before this List of <booking> elements.

See my example here:

Structure i need....

<nicexml>
<key_id>1234567</key_id>
<surname>Jil</surname>
<name>Sander</name>
<station_id>1</station_id>
<ownBookings>
    <bookingList>
        <error></error>
        <counter>20</counter>
        <booking>
             <bookingID>1234567890</bookingID>
        </booking>
        <booking>
             <bookingID>2345678901</bookingID>
        </booking>
    </bookingList>
</ownBookings>
</nicexml>

Structure i get with C# code below....

<nicexml>
<key_id>1234567</key_id>
<surname>Jil</surname>
<name>Sander</name>
<station_id>1</station_id>
<ownBookings>
    <bookingList>
           <booking>
        <booking>
             <bookingID>1234567890</bookingID>
        </booking>
        <booking>
             <bookingID>2345678901</bookingID>
        </booking>
             <booking>
        <error></error>
        <counter>20</counter>
    </bookingList>
</ownBookings>
</nicexml>

C# Code:

using System;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace xml_objects_serials
{
    public class bookings
    {
        public class nicexml
        {
            public string key_id
            { get; set; }

            public string surname
            { get; set; }

            public string name
            { get; set; }

            public int station_id
            { get; set; }

            public ownBookings ownBookings
            { get; set; }

        }

        public class ownBookings
        {
            public bookingList bookingList
            { get; set; }

        }
        public class bookingList {
            public string error 
            { get; set; }
            public int counter
            { get; set; }
            public List<booking> booking= new List<booking>();
        }

        public class booking
        {
            public int bookingID
            { get; set; }
        }
    }

Answer

Enrico Campidoglio picture Enrico Campidoglio · Jun 23, 2011

Try decorating the properties of the bookingListclass with the XmlElementAttribute, in order to control how the objects of that class are going to be serialized to XML.

Here's an example:

public class bookingList
{
    [XmlElement(Order = 1)]
    public string error { get; set; }
    [XmlElement(Order = 2)]
    public int counter { get; set; }
    [XmlElement(ElementName = "booking", Order = 3)]
    public List<booking> bookings = new List<booking>();
}

public class booking
{
    public int id { get; set; }
}

In my test I obtained this output:

<?xml version="1.0" ?> 
<bookingList>
    <error>sample</error>
    <counter>0</counter>
    <booking>
        <id>1</id> 
    </booking>
    <booking>
        <id>2</id> 
    </booking>
    <booking>
        <id>3</id> 
    </booking> 
</bookingList>

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