How to deserialize Xml with root than multiple child elements of the same type

Question

I'm trying deserialize a xml document that looks like this

<invoices>
  <invoice>2848</invoice>
  <invoice>2849</invoice>
  <invoice>2850</invoice>
  <invoice>2851</invoice>
  <invoice>2852</invoice>
</invoices>

Into a C# object, but I cannot get it to work. I'm using the DataContractSerializer

This is what my class looks like:

[DataContract(Name = "invoices", Namespace = "")]
public class Invoices
{
    [DataMember(Name = "invoice")]
    public Invoice[] InvoiceIds { get; set; }
}

[DataContract(Name = "invoice", Namespace = "")]
public class Invoice
{
    [DataMember(Name = "invoice")]
    public string Id { get; set; }
}

Of course this does not work. I get this error:

{"Error in line 1 position 24. Expecting state 'Element'.. Encountered 'Text'  with name '', namespace ''. "}

I'm not in control of the Xml.

Answer 1

Try using a [CollectionDataContract] for this scenario:

public class StackOverflow_10705733
{
    [CollectionDataContract(Name = "invoices", ItemName = "invoice", Namespace = "")]
    public class Invoices : List<int>
    {
        [DataMember(Name = "invoice")]
        public int[] InvoiceIds { get; set; }
    }
    public static void Test()
    {
        DataContractSerializer dcs = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(Invoices));
        string xml = @"<invoices>
                          <invoice>2848</invoice>
                          <invoice>2849</invoice>
                          <invoice>2850</invoice>
                          <invoice>2851</invoice>
                          <invoice>2852</invoice>
                        </invoices>";
        MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(xml));
        Invoices value = dcs.ReadObject(ms) as Invoices;
        Console.WriteLine(string.Join(",", value));
    }
}