How do I serialize an enum value as an int?

Question

I want to serialize my enum-value as an int, but i only get the name.

Here is my (sample) class and enum:

public class Request {     public RequestType request; }  public enum RequestType {     Booking = 1,     Confirmation = 2,     PreBooking = 4,     PreBookingConfirmation = 5,     BookingStatus = 6 } 

And the code (just to be sure i'm not doing it wrong)

Request req = new Request(); req.request = RequestType.Confirmation; XmlSerializer xml = new XmlSerializer(req.GetType()); StringWriter writer = new StringWriter(); xml.Serialize(writer, req); textBox1.Text = writer.ToString(); 

This answer (to another question) seems to indicate that enums should serialize to ints as default, but it doesn't seem to do that. Here is my output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?> <Request xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">   <request>Confirmation</request> </Request> 

I have been able to serialize as the value by putting an "[XmlEnum("X")]" attribute on every value, but this just seems wrong.

Answer 1

The easiest way is to use [XmlEnum] attribute like so:

[Serializable] public enum EnumToSerialize {     [XmlEnum("1")]     One = 1,     [XmlEnum("2")]     Two = 2 } 

This will serialize into XML (say that the parent class is CustomClass) like so:

<CustomClass>   <EnumValue>2</EnumValue> </CustomClass>