How to read this file (is xml formated but with another extension)

Question

I have a file, it has a xml structure but with another extension(.qlic). I need to read it to get the property UserCount, this value is inside a Licence tag. Here´s the code inside the file:

    <License xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" UserCount="542">
<OrganizationName>**********</OrganizationName>
<ServerName>******</ServerName>
<Servers />
<Signature xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
<SignedInfo><CanonicalizationMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xml-c14n-20010315" />
<SignatureMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#rsa-sha1" />
<Reference URI="">
<Transforms>
<Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#enveloped-signature" />
</Transforms>
<DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#sha1" />
<DigestValue>Itavzm993LQxky+HrtwpJmQQSco=</DigestValue>
</Reference>
</SignedInfo>
<SignatureValue>j7VVqrjacSRBgbRb1coGK/LQFRFWv9Tfe5y5mQmYM9HJ8EoKGtigOycoOPdCeIaIctVGT3rrgTW+2KcVmv92LTdpu7eC3QJk2HZgqRFyIy+HR9XQ9qYPV8sLLxVkkESvG19zglX66qkBJsm2UL6ps3BhnEt/jrs+FEsAeCBzM6s=</SignatureValue>
</Signature>
</License>

And here´s the exception when I'm trying to read the file: "{"<License xmlns=''> was not expected."}"

And here´s my c# code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Xml;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace xmlReader
{
    [XmlRoot(ElementName = "License"), XmlType("Licence")]
    public class ReaderXML
    {
        public ReaderXML()
        { 
        }

        public class result
        {
            public string _result;
        }

        public static void ReadXML()
        {
            XmlSerializer reader = new XmlSerializer(typeof(result));
            StreamReader file = new StreamReader(@"C:\Users\User\Desktop\myfile.qlic");
            result overview = new result();
            overview = (result)reader.Deserialize(file);

            Console.WriteLine(overview._result);

        }
    }

}

Answer 1

Using Linq to Xml your task of querying the attribute UserCount can be as simple as that:

using (var reader = new StreamReader(@"C:\Users\User\Desktop\myfile.qlic"))
{
    XDocument lic = XDocument.Load(reader);
    string usercount = lic.Element("License").Attribute("UserCount").Value;
}

.Element(name) will return just the first element with the given name.

Check out LINQ to Xml on MSDN.

If you still need to deserialize the Xml shown in your question the type you specify for your XmlSerializer need to have the matching properties.

It can have other properties as well which you can mark with the [XmlIgnore] attribute.