XmlSerializer.UnknownElement Event

Definition

Occurs when the XmlSerializer encounters an XML element of unknown type during deserialization.

public event System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementEventHandler UnknownElement;

Event Type

Examples

The following example deserializes a class named Group from a file named UnknownElements.xml. Whenever an element is found in the file that has no corresponding member in the class, the UnknownElement event occurs. To try the example, paste the following XML code into a file named UnknownElements.xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Group xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <GroupName>MyGroup</GroupName>
  <GroupSize>Large</GroupSize>
  <GroupNumber>444</GroupNumber>
  <GroupBase>West</GroupBase>
</Group>
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Schema;

public class Group{
   public string GroupName;
}

public class Test{
   static void Main(){
      Test t = new Test();
      // Deserialize the file containing unknown elements.
      t.DeserializeObject("UnknownElements.xml");
   }
   private void Serializer_UnknownElement(object sender, XmlElementEventArgs e){
      Console.WriteLine("Unknown Element");
      Console.WriteLine("\t" + e.Element.Name + " " + e.Element.InnerXml);
      Console.WriteLine("\t LineNumber: " + e.LineNumber);
      Console.WriteLine("\t LinePosition: " + e.LinePosition);
      
      Group x  = (Group) e.ObjectBeingDeserialized;
      Console.WriteLine (x.GroupName);
      Console.WriteLine (sender.ToString());
   }
   private void DeserializeObject(string filename){
      XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Group));
      // Add a delegate to handle unknown element events.
      ser.UnknownElement+=new XmlElementEventHandler(Serializer_UnknownElement);
      // A FileStream is needed to read the XML document.
     FileStream fs = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Open);
     Group g = (Group) ser.Deserialize(fs);
     fs.Close();
    }
}

Remarks

By default, after calling the Deserialize method, the XmlSerializer ignores XML attributes of unknown types. However, you can use this event to handle such node types.

Note

If the XmlAnyElementAttribute is applied to a field that returns an array of XmlElement objects, all unknown elements are collected in the array. In that case, the UnknownElement event does not occur.

Applies to

Product Versions
.NET Core 2.0, Core 2.1, Core 2.2, Core 3.0, Core 3.1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
.NET Framework 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 4.5.1, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, 4.7.2, 4.8, 4.8.1
.NET Standard 2.0, 2.1

See also