How to rename <ArrayOf> XML attribute that generated after serializing List of objects

Question

I am serializing List of objects List<TestObject> , and XmlSerializer generates <ArrayOfTestObject> attribute, I want rename it or remove it.
Can it be done with creating new class that encapsulated List as field?

 [XmlRoot("Container")]      public class TestObject  {      public TestObject() { }                               public string Str { get; set; }                           }   List<TestObject> tmpList = new List<TestObject>();   TestObject TestObj = new TestObject();  TestObj.Str = "Test";   TestObject TestObj2 = new TestObject();  TestObj2.Str = "xcvxc";   tmpList.Add(TestObj);  tmpList.Add(TestObj2);    XmlWriterSettings settings = new XmlWriterSettings();  settings.OmitXmlDeclaration = true;  settings.Indent = true;  XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<TestObject>));   using (XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(@"C:\test.xml", settings))  {                    XmlSerializerNamespaces namespaces = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();      namespaces.Add(string.Empty, string.Empty);      serializer.Serialize(writer, tmpList, namespaces);                             }   <ArrayOfTestObject>   <TestObject>     <Str>Test</Str>   </TestObject>   <TestObject>     <Str>xcvxc</Str>   </TestObject> </ArrayOfTestObject> 

Answer 1

The most reliable way is to declare an outermost DTO class:

[XmlRoot("myOuterElement")] public class MyOuterMessage {     [XmlElement("item")]     public List<TestObject> Items {get;set;} } 

and serialize that (i.e. put your list into another object).

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You can avoid a wrapper class, but I wouldn't:

class Program {     static void Main()     {         XmlSerializer ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(List<Foo>),              new XmlRootAttribute("Flibble"));         List<Foo> foos = new List<Foo> {             new Foo {Bar = "abc"},             new Foo {Bar = "def"}         };         ser.Serialize(Console.Out, foos);     } }  public class Foo {     public string Bar { get; set; } } 

The problem with this is that when you use custom attributes you need to be very careful to store and re-use the serializer, otherwise you get lots of dynamic assemblies loaded into memory. This is avoided if you just use the XmlSerializer(Type) constructor, as it caches this internally automatically.