DataContract and Arrays in Top Level elements

Question

I have an xml file coming down from TeamCity that looks like this (no other elements):

<builds count="2">
    <build id="1" number="100" running="true" (etc) />
    <build id="2" number="200" running="true" (etc) />
    <build id="3" number="200" running="true" (etc) />
</builds>

My data contracts look like this:

[Serializable,DataContract(Name="builds", Namespace = "")]
    public class builds
    {
        [XmlArray]
        public build[] build;

        [XmlAttribute("count")] 
        public int count { get; set; }

    }

    [Serializable, DataContract(Name = "build", Namespace = "")]
    public class build
    {
        [XmlAttribute("id")]
        public int id;

        [XmlAttribute("number")]
        public int number;

        [XmlAttribute("running")]
        public bool running;

        [XmlAttribute("percentageComplete")]
        public int percentageComplete;

        [XmlAttribute("status")]
        public string status;

        [XmlAttribute("buildTypeId")]
        public string buildTypeId;

        [XmlAttribute("startDate")]
        public string startDate;

        [XmlAttribute("href")]
        public string href;

        [XmlAttribute("webUrl")]
        public string webUrl;
    }

Clearly I wouldn't be here if that was working :) How do I fix an issue with serialization of top level array elements that are all named the same? If I make it into a single instance of build it works fine and I can interact with the object.

Answer 1

What about following

    [Fact]
    public void Test()
    {
        var builds = new builds
            {
                build = new[]
                    {
                        new build
                            {
                                buildTypeId = "1",
                                number = 100,
                                running = true
                            },
                        new build
                            {
                                buildTypeId = "2",
                                number = 200,
                                running = true
                            }
                    }
            };

        var namespaces = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
        namespaces.Add(string.Empty, string.Empty);
        var writer = new StringWriter();
        new XmlSerializer(typeof(builds)).Serialize(writer, builds, namespaces);
        string result = writer.ToString();
        Console.Write(result);
    }

    [XmlRoot("builds")]
    public class builds
    {
        [XmlElement("build")]
        public build[] build;

        [XmlAttribute("count")]
        public int count { get; set; }
    }

    public class build
    {
        [XmlAttribute("buildTypeId")]
        public string buildTypeId;

        [XmlAttribute("href")]
        public string href;

        [XmlAttribute("id")]
        public int id;

        [XmlAttribute("number")]
        public int number;

        [XmlAttribute("percentageComplete")]
        public int percentageComplete;

        [XmlAttribute("running")]
        public bool running;

        [XmlAttribute("startDate")]
        public string startDate;

        [XmlAttribute("status")]
        public string status;

        [XmlAttribute("webUrl")]
        public string webUrl;
    }

Result output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<builds count="0">
  <build buildTypeId="1" id="0" number="100" percentageComplete="0" running="true" />
  <build buildTypeId="2" id="0" number="200" percentageComplete="0" running="true" />
</builds>