XmlArrayItemAttribute.DataType Property

Definition

Namespace:

System.Xml.Serialization

Assemblies:

netstandard.dll, System.Xml.XmlSerializer.dll

Source:

XmlArrayItemAttribute.cs

Gets or sets the XML data type of the generated XML element.

C#

public string DataType { get; set; }

Property Value

String

An XML schema definition (XSD) data type.

Examples

The following example serializes a class named PurchaseOrder. Several instances of the XmlArrayItemAttribute class are applied to three members, and the DataType property for each instance is set to a type allowed in the array.

C#

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml.Schema;
public class PurchaseOrder
{
   [XmlArrayItem(DataType = "gMonth", 
   ElementName="MyMonths",
   Namespace = "http://www.cohowinery.com")]
   public string[] Months;

   [XmlArrayItem(typeof(Item)), XmlArrayItem(typeof(NewItem))]
   public Item[] Items;

   [XmlArray(IsNullable = true)]
   [XmlArrayItem(typeof(string)), 
   XmlArrayItem(typeof(double)), 
   XmlArrayItem(typeof(NewItem))]
   public object[] Things;
   }

public class Item{
   public string ItemID;
   public Item(){}
   public Item(string id){
    ItemID = id;
   }
}
public class NewItem:Item{
   public string Category;
   public NewItem(){}
   public NewItem(string id, string cat){
    this.ItemID = id;
    Category = cat;
    }
}
 
public class Test
{
   public static void Main()
   {
      // Read and write purchase orders.
      Test t = new Test();
      t.SerializeObject("ArrayItemEx.xml");
      t.DeserializeObject("ArrayItemEx.xml");
   } 

   private void SerializeObject(string filename)
   {
      // Create an instance of the XmlSerializer class;
      // specify the type of object to serialize.
      XmlSerializer serializer = 
      new XmlSerializer(typeof(PurchaseOrder));
      TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filename);
      // Create a PurchaseOrder and set its properties.
      PurchaseOrder po=new PurchaseOrder();
      po.Months = new string[]{ "March", "May", "August"};
      po.Items= new Item[]{new Item("a1"), new NewItem("b1", "book")};
      po.Things= new object[] {"String", 2003.31, new NewItem("Item100", "book")};
      
      // Serialize the purchase order, and close the TextWriter.
      serializer.Serialize(writer, po);
      writer.Close();
   }
 
   protected void DeserializeObject(string filename)
   {
      // Create an instance of the XmlSerializer class;
      // specify the type of object to be deserialized.
      XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(PurchaseOrder));
   
      // A FileStream is needed to read the XML document.
      FileStream fs = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Open);
      // Declare an object variable of the type to be deserialized.
      PurchaseOrder po;
      /* Use the Deserialize method to restore the object's state with
      data from the XML document. */
      po = (PurchaseOrder) serializer.Deserialize(fs);
      foreach(string s in po.Months)
          Console.WriteLine(s);
      foreach(Item i in po.Items)
         Console.WriteLine(i.ItemID);
      foreach(object thing in po.Things)
         Console.WriteLine(thing); 
   } 
}

Remarks

The following table lists the XML Schema simple data types with their .NET equivalents.

For the XML Schema base64Binary and hexBinary data types, use an array of Byte objects, and apply an XmlArrayItemAttribute with the DataType property set to "base64Binary" or "hexBinary", as appropriate. For the XML Schema time and date data types, use the DateTime type and apply the XmlArrayItemAttribute with the DataType set to "date" or "time".

For every XML Schema type that is mapped to a string, apply the XmlArrayItemAttribute with its DataType property set to the XML Schema type. However, this does not change the serialization format, only the schema for the member.

Note

The property is case-sensitive, so you must set it exactly to one of the XML Schema data types.

Note

Passing binary data as an XML element is more efficient then passing it as an XML attribute.

For more information about XML Schema data types, see the World Wide Web Consortium document XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes.

XSD data type	.NET data type
anyURI	String
base64Binary	Array of Byte objects
boolean	Boolean
byte	SByte
date	DateTime
dateTime	DateTime
decimal	Decimal
double	Double
ENTITY	String
ENTITIES	String
float	Single
gDay	String
gMonth	String
gMonthDay	String
gYear	String
gYearMonth	String
hexBinary	Array of Byte objects
ID	String
IDREF	String
IDREFS	String
int	Int32
integer	String
language	String
long	Int64
Name	String
NCName	String
negativeInteger	String
NMTOKEN	String
NMTOKENS	String
normalizedString	String
nonNegativeInteger	String
nonPositiveInteger	String
NOTATION	String
positiveInteger	String
QName	XmlQualifiedName
duration	String
string	String
short	Int16
time	DateTime
token	String
unsignedByte	Byte
unsignedInt	UInt32
unsignedLong	UInt64
unsignedShort	UInt16

Applies to