Shailen Sukul

"XML attributes may not be specified for the type"
XmlSerializer and CollectionBase derived classes

I get this error when I try to serialize an object that is based upon the CollectionBase class and has an XmlRoot attribute.

The solution is to provide hints in the Serialization method to add a defined root in the generated XML. Thanks to user "armanddp" http://dotnet.org.za/armand/archive/2004/09/21/4164.aspx, I have beautified his solution as shown below:


Step 1: Create an attribute class that you can use to specifiy the root attribute.

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class)]
     public class XmlRootNameAttribute : Attribute
     {
          public XmlRootNameAttribute()
          {}
          public XmlRootNameAttribute(string name)
          {
               this.name = name;
          }
          public string name = string.Empty;
     }

Step 2: Add the attribute to your own class.

[Serializable]
[XmlRootName("StepClassConfigurationCollection")]
public class MyCollection : CollectionBase, IList
     {}

Step 3: Create a Serializer method to read the extra attribute, if it exists, otherwise serialise as per normal.

/// <summary>
          /// Serialize the given object into a string
          /// </summary>
          /// <param name="o"></param>
          /// <returns></returns>
          public string SerializeObject(object o)
          {
               string ret = string.Empty;
               Stream writer = new MemoryStream();
               XmlSerializer ser = null;
               XmlRootAttribute ra = new XmlRootAttribute();
               Type objectType = o.GetType();
               // determines if the custom attribute was found
               bool bAttFound = false;

               ra.Namespace = string.Empty;               
               // try and find the custom attribute that will determine the root namespace.
               object [] oAtt = objectType.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(PMPDO.XmlRootNameAttribute), false);
               if (oAtt != null)
               {
                    if (oAtt.Length > 0)
                    {
                         bAttFound = true;
                         // use the given root name
                         ra.ElementName = ((PMPDO.XmlRootNameAttribute)oAtt[0]).name;
                    }
               }

               if (!bAttFound)
               {
                    // if there is no root name provided, then just use the default
                    ser = new XmlSerializer(objectType);
               }
               else
               {
                    // otherwise use the provided root name
                    ser = new XmlSerializer(objectType, ra);
               }

               XmlSerializerNamespaces ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();

               ns.Add("","");  

               if (bAttFound)
               {
                    // use the given root when provided
                    ser.Serialize(writer, o, ns);
               }
               else
               {               
                    // otherwise use the default (no root provided)
                    ser.Serialize(writer, o);
               }
  
               // read the string from the serialized stream
               writer.Position = 0;
               StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(writer,System.Text.Encoding.ASCII);
               ret = sr.ReadToEnd();

               return ret;
          }