Serializing Xml from Stream by Setting XmlRoot still throws Exception

Question

I have a class defined like the following:

[XmlRoot(ElementName="state_territories")]
public class Location
{
    ...
}

The XML that I'm retrieving (pulled from the stream and written to the debugger using a writer) is:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8' ?><state_territories>...</state_territories>

However, when I try to serialize my XML response such as:

var serializer = new DataContractSerializer(typeof(Location));
Locations = serializer.ReadObject(response.GetResponseStream()) as Location;

I received the following exception:

"Expecting element 'Location' from namespace 'http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/App.Data.Territories'. Encountered 'Element' with name 'state_territories', namespace ''."

I'm probably missing something simple, but I had thought that if I define the XmlRoot, this would override the inferred root element Location.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

[XmlRoot(...)] is only processed by XmlSerializer:

var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Location));
Locations = (Location) serializer.Deserialize(response.GetResponseStream());

If you are processing regular xml and you need control over the names / attributes etc, then XmlSerializer is the best choice; DataContractSerializer offers only minimal control over the xml mapping.