How to generate tag prefixes using XmlSerializer

Question

I wanted to generate the following using XmlSerializer :

<atom:link href="http://dallas.example.com/rss.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> 

So I tried to add a Namespace to my element :

[...]      [XmlElement("link", Namespace="atom")]     public AtomLink AtomLink { get; set; }  [...] 

But the output is :

<link xmlns="atom" href="http://dallas.example.com/rss.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> 

So what is the correct way to generate prefixed tags ?

Answer 1

First off, the atom namespace is normally this:

xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" 

In order to get your tags to use the atom namespace prefix, you need to mark your properties with it:

[XmlElement("link", Namespace="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom")] public AtomLink AtomLink { get; set; } 

You also need tell the XmlSerializer to use it (thanks to @Marc Gravell):

XmlSerializerNamespaces ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces(); ns.Add("atom", "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"); XmlSerializer xser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(MyType)); xser.Serialize(Console.Out, new MyType(), ns);