How to deserialize XML when you don't know the namespace?
I am dealing with an API that changes namespaces from time to time in the XML I receive. The XML structure remains the same. I need to deserialize XML into a strongly typed model.
How do I deserialize no matter what namespace is in the XML?
I used a model like this:
[Serializable, XmlRoot(ElementName = "TestModel", Namespace = "http://schemas.datacontract.org/UnknownNamespace1")]
public class TestModel
{
public TestModel()
{
TestElements = new List<TestModelChildren>();
}
[XmlElement("TestModelChildren")]
public List<TestModelChildren> TestElements { get; set; }
}
I am trying to deserialize some XML into this model with code like this:
public TestModel DeserializeIt(XDocument xDoc)
{
TestModel result;
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(TestModel));
using(var sr = new StringReader(xDoc.ToString()))
{
result = (TestModel)serializer.Deserialize(sr);
}
return result;
}
My problem is that every so often, the namespace in the XML I get changes. I can start getting XML like this:
<TestModel xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/UnknownNamespace2">
<TestModelChildren>
...
</TestModelChildren>
</TestModel>
I don't want to recompile my code every time this namespace change happens. How can I deal with this?
source to share
I managed to solve the problem by passing the namespace to the XmlSerializer as the default namespace. I can rip out the namespace from the XDocument to do this.
My new model will look like this without the specified namespace:
[Serializable, XmlRoot(ElementName = "TestModel")]
public class TestModel
{
public TestModel()
{
TestElements = new List<TestModelChildren>();
}
[XmlElement("TestModelChildren")]
public List<TestModelChildren> TestElements { get; set; }
}
My code for deserializing XML would look like this:
public TestModel DeserializeIt(XDocument xDoc)
{
TestModel result;
var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(TestModel), xDoc.Root.Name.Namespace.ToString());
using(var sr = new StringReader(xDoc.ToString()))
{
result = (TestModel)serializer.Deserialize(sr);
}
return result;
}
This works for me.
source to share