Deserialize XML file to an Domain object

Some time ago, I read this article on how to deserialize XML files into objects and I thought, let's give this a try. Let's try a simple domain class Person which has a couple of properties like FirstName, LastName and an Address List for which I created another domain class.

I started with the XML file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Persons xmlns="http://personreader" DefaultProfile="XmlToObjectDeserialization">
  <PersonInfo AssemblyFile="Domain.dll" >
    <FirstName>John</FirstName>
    <LastName>Doe</LastName>
    <Address>
      <StreetName>Hit the road street</StreetName>
      <HouseNumber>6</HouseNumber>
      <PostalCode>5800B</PostalCode>
      <Location>New York</Location>
    </Address>
    <Address>
      <StreetName>Secondary Address Street</StreetName>
      <HouseNumber>44</HouseNumber>
      <PostalCode>1500</PostalCode>
      <Location>California</Location>
    </Address>
  </PersonInfo>
</Persons>

The next thing to do, is create the domain classes. These classes have to reflect the XML file's properties. We start with the Person class:

namespace Domain
{
   [XmlRoot("Persons",Namespace="http://personreader")]
   public class Persons
   {
        // Return array of PersonInfo objects
        [XmlElement("PersonInfo")]
        public PersonInfo[] PersonInfos;
    }
}

Notice the Namespace property in the attribute. It has to be the same as the xmlns attribute in the XML file. We define a Person class with a list of PersonInfo objects. This PersonInfo class looks like this:

namespace Domain
{
    public class PersonInfo
    {
        // Match properties of XML file
        [XmlAttribute]
        public string AssemblyFile;

        [XmlElement("FirstName")]
        public string FirstName;

        [XmlElement("LastName")]
        public string LastName;

        [XmlElement("Address")]
        public Address[] Address;
    }
}

The AssemblyFile string is marked as an XmlAttribute. All the others are XmlElements which corresponds with the XML file.

Finally, the Address class:

namespace Domain
{
    public class Address
    {
        [XmlElement("StreetName")]
        public string StreetName;

        [XmlElement("HouseNumber")]
        public string HouseNumber;

        [XmlElement("PostalCode")]
        public string PostalCode;

        [XmlElement("Location")]
        public string Location;
    }
}

Clearly no rocket science here.

The only thing that has to be done is the deserialization of course. It works like this:

private static void DeserializeXml()
{
      using (TextReader tr = 
                 File.OpenText(@"PersonsData.xml"))
      {
            XmlSerializer serializer = 
            new XmlSerializer(typeof(Persons));
            
            Persons persons = 
           (Persons)serializer.Deserialize(tr);
      }
}

Not that difficult. We open our file and put the content into a stream. Then we create a XmlSerializer and let it know that we want to deserialize to the Persons domain class.

Finally deserialize the stream and we're done.

Greetz,                                                                              G