C# Changing the element names of items in a list when serializing/deserializing XML

Question

I have a class defined as below:

[XmlRoot("ClassName")]
public class ClassName_0
{
    //stuff...
}

I then create a list of ClassName_0 like such:

var myListInstance= new List<ClassName_0>();

This is the code I use to serialize:

var ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<ClassName_0>));
ser.Serialize(aWriterStream, myListInstance);

This is the code I use to deserialize:

var ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<ClassName_0>));
var wrapper = ser.Deserialize(new StringReader(xml));

If I serialize it to xml, the resulting xml looks like below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ArrayOfClassName_0 xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <ClassName_0>
        <stuff></stuff>
    </ClassName_0>
    <ClassName_0>
        <stuff></stuff>
    </ClassName_0>
</ArrayOfClassName_0>

Is there a way to serialize and be able to deserialize the below from/to a list of ClassName_0?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ArrayOfClassName xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <ClassName>
        <stuff></stuff>
    </ClassName>
    <ClassName>
        <stuff></stuff>
    </ClassName>
</ArrayOfClassName>

Thanks!

Answer 1

In your example ClassName isn't the real root. The real root is your list. So you have to mark the list as the root element. Your class is just an XmlElement.