XmlTextAttribute.DataType Property

Definition

Namespace:

System.Xml.Serialization

Assemblies:

netstandard.dll, System.Xml.ReaderWriter.dll

Source:

XmlTextAttribute.cs

Gets or sets the XML Schema definition language (XSD) data type of the text generated by the XmlSerializer.

C#

public string DataType { get; set; }

Property Value

String

An XML Schema (XSD) data type.

Exceptions

Exception

The XML Schema data type you have specified cannot be mapped to the .NET data type.

InvalidOperationException

The XML Schema data type you have specified is invalid for the property and cannot be converted to the member type.

Examples

C#

using System;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
using System.IO;

public class Group1{
   // The XmlTextAttribute with type set to string informs the
   // XmlSerializer that strings should be serialized as XML text.
   [XmlText(typeof(string))]
   [XmlElement(typeof(int))]
   [XmlElement(typeof(double))]
   public object [] All= new object []{321, "One", 2, 3.0, "Two" };
}

public class Group2{
   [XmlText(Type = typeof(GroupType))]
   public GroupType Type;
}
public enum GroupType{
   Small,
   Medium,
   Large
}

public class Group3{
   [XmlText(Type=typeof(DateTime))]
   public DateTime CreationTime = DateTime.Now;
}

public class Test{
   static void Main(){
      Test t = new Test();
      t.SerializeArray("XmlText1.xml");
      t.SerializeEnum("XmlText2.xml");
      t.SerializeDateTime("XmlText3.xml");
   }

   private void SerializeArray(string filename){
      XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Group1));
      Group1 myGroup1 = new Group1();

      TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filename);

      ser.Serialize(writer, myGroup1);
      writer.Close();
   }

   private void SerializeEnum(string filename){
      XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Group2));
      Group2 myGroup = new Group2();
      myGroup.Type = GroupType.Medium;
      TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filename);

      ser.Serialize(writer, myGroup);
      writer.Close();
   }

   private void SerializeDateTime(string filename){
      XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Group3));
      Group3 myGroup = new Group3();
      TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(filename);

      ser.Serialize(writer, myGroup);
      writer.Close();
   }
}

Remarks

Setting the DataType property to an XML Schema simple data type affects the format of the generated XML. For example, setting the property to "date" causes the generated text to be formatted in the general date style, for example: 2001-08-31. By contrast, setting the property to "dateTime" results in a specific instant as defined by the International Organization for Standardization document 8601, "Representations of Dates and Times", for example: 2001-08-15T06:59:11.0508456-07:00.

The effect of setting the DataType property can also be seen when using the XML Schema Definition Tool (Xsd.exe) to generate the XML Schema for a compiled file. For more information on using the tool, see The XML Schema Definition Tool and XML Serialization.

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 structures, and apply a XmlTextAttribute with the DataType set to "base64Binary" or "hexBinary", as appropriate. For the XML Schema time and date data types, use the DateTime type and apply the XmlTextAttribute with the DataType set to "date" or "time".

For every XML Schema data type that is mapped to a string, apply the XmlTextAttribute with its DataType property set to the XML Schema data type. Note that 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 than passing it as an XML attribute.

For more information about XML Schema data types, see the World Wide Web Consortium document named 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