XmlSerialize Class to CDATA

Question

Due to one of the interfaces we are writing for, we have to add a CDATA tag for a list of classes.

    <modules>
        <![CDATA[<module>
            <title></title>
            <code></code>
            <level></level>
            <year></year>
            <summary></summary>
        </module>
          <module>
            <title></title>
            <code></code>
            <level></level>
            <year></year>
            <summary></summary>
        </module>]]>
    </modules>

I'm unsure how to achieve this. I have found questions around individual strings, but not so much around an entire class. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Answer 1

One of the ways to get the output you are expecting is to separate the creation of the module data and generating the CDATA part. For example:

To create the module data -

1. Create a class to hold module details as below -

   public class Module
   {
       public string title { get; set; }
       public string code { get; set; }
       public string level { get; set; }
       public string summary { get; set; }
    }
   

2. Create a method to fetch these datails -

    public static string CreateXMLString()
      {
       List<Module> modules = new List<Module>();
       modules = new List<Module>() { new Module() { code = "test", 
       summary="Test3", title="Test", level = "tests1" },
                                          new Module() { code = "test3", 
       summary="Test3", title="Test3", level = "tests3" } };
   
           // Create XML to return the string in the format of 
           // <module code="test">
           //  < level > tests1 </ level >
           //  < summary > Test3 </ summary >
           //  < title > Test </ title >
           //</ module >< module code = "test3" >   
           //     < level > tests3 </ level >   
           //     < summary > Test3 </ summary >   
           //     < title > Test3 </ title >
           //   </ module >
   
         var modulesXml = 
             from mod in modules
             select new XElement("module",
           new XAttribute("code", mod.code),
           new XElement("level", mod.level),
           new XElement("summary", mod.summary),
           new XElement("title", mod.title)
          );
   
         return String.Concat(modulesXml);
       }
   

To get the CDATA you can use the below steps -

3. Create a class Modulesand refer the documentation for usages of CreateCDataSection and for similar threads here for the details

   [XmlType("")]
   public class Modules
   {
    public Modules() { }
   
    [XmlIgnore]
    public string Message { get; set; }
    [XmlElement("modules")]
    public System.Xml.XmlCDataSection MyStringCDATA
    {
        get
        {
           return new System.Xml.XmlDocument().CreateCDataSection(Message);
        }
        set
        {
           Message = value.Value;
        }
    }
   }
   

To test the output assign the string generated in step 2 during serialization you can refer the sample code below

static void Main(string[] args)
 {
   Modules mc = new Modules();
   mc.Message = CreateXMLString();//Assign your data created in step 2
   XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Modules));
   XmlSerializerNamespaces ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
   ns.Add("", "");
       
   StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();

    //Remove unnecessary namespaces
   serializer.Serialize(writer, mc,ns);
   var test = XDocument.Parse(writer.ToString());            
            
   var data = test.Root.Elements();              
            
   Console.WriteLine(data.FirstOrDefault().Value);

 }

Output -

<modules>
<![CDATA[<module>
  <code>test</code>
  <level>tests1</level>
  <summary>Test3</summary>
  <title>Test</title>
</module><module>
  <code>test3</code>
  <level>tests3</level>
  <summary>Test3</summary>
  <title>Test3</title>
</module>]]>
</modules>