Adjust MVC 4 WebApi XmlSerializer to lose the nameSpace

Question

I\'m working on a MVC WebAPI, that uses EF with POCO classes for storage. What I want to do is get rid of the namespace from the XML, so that the endpoints would return and

Answer 1

I have customized Boris's answer to MVC Webapi 5. Use either of the following http headers render the result using the CustomFormatter:

accept: application/xml

accept: text/xml

WebApiConfig.cs :

public static class WebApiConfig
{
    public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
    {
        config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
            name: "DefaultApi",
            routeTemplate: "{controller}/{id}",
            defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
        );

        GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Add(new CustomXmlFormatter());
        GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Remove(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.XmlFormatter);
    }
}

CustomXmlFormatter.cs :

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Net.Http.Formatting;
using System.Net.Http.Headers;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Web;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace Custom.Formatter
{
    public class CustomXmlFormatter: MediaTypeFormatter
    {
        private  UTF8Encoding encoder;

        public CustomXmlFormatter()
        {
            SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/xml"));
            SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("text/xml"));
            encoder = new UTF8Encoding(false, true);
        }

        public override bool CanReadType(Type type)
        {
            if (type == (Type)null)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("type");

            //Type filtering
            if (type == typeof(SendEmailMessageResponse) || type == typeof(SendSmsMessageResponse))
                return true;
            else
                return false;
        }

        public override bool CanWriteType(Type type)
        {
            return true;
        }

        public override Task<object> ReadFromStreamAsync(Type type, Stream stream, HttpContent content, IFormatterLogger formatterLogger)
        {
            return Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
                    {
                        using (var streamReader = new StreamReader(stream, encoder))
                        {
                            var serializer = new XmlSerializer(type);
                            return serializer.Deserialize(streamReader);
                        }
                    });
        }

        public override Task WriteToStreamAsync(Type type, object value, Stream stream,    HttpContent content, TransportContext transportContext)
        {
            var serializer = new XmlSerializer(type);
            return Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
                    {
                        using (var streamWriter = new StreamWriter(stream, encoder))
                        {
                            XmlSerializerNamespaces ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
                            ns.Add("", "");
                            serializer.Serialize(streamWriter, value, ns);
                        }
                    });
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

It's been awhile since I messed with MVC 4, but we ended up replacing the default formatter with the XmlSerializer like so:

protected void Application_Start()
    {
        AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();

        FilterConfig.RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);
        RouteConfig.RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);
        BundleConfig.RegisterBundles(BundleTable.Bundles);

        GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.JsonFormatter.SerializerSettings = GetSerializeSettings();
        GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.XmlFormatter.UseXmlSerializer = true;
    }

    internal JsonSerializerSettings GetSerializeSettings()
    {
        return new JsonSerializerSettings
                           {
                               Formatting = Formatting.Indented,
                               ContractResolver = new CamelCasePropertyNamesContractResolver(),
                               Converters = new List<JsonConverter> { new IsoDateTimeConverter() }
                           };
    }

This might help... I know we also customized the property names using attributes on the POCOs which you said you don't want to do, but that's because we wanted them to be camel-cased.

Answer 3

This answer here is spot on the mark Remove namespace in XML from ASP.NET Web API.\

If you don't want to decorate your POCO's at all use the 1st option:

config.Formatters.XmlFormatter.UseXmlSerializer = true;

If you use option 2, you may need to add a reference to System.Runtime.Serialization

Assuming a post like this with Accept set correct:

GET http:// ANY OLD SERVER/api/foos/5 Accept: application/xml

Controller

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;
using System.Web.Http;

namespace CutomXmlFormater.Controllers
{
//[DataContract(Namespace = "")]
public class Foo
{
    //[DataMember]
    public string Bar { get; set; }
}

public class FoosController : ApiController
{
    // GET api/foos/5
    public Foo Get(int id)
    {
        return new Foo() { Bar = "Test" };
    }
}

}

Config (App_Start/WebApiConfig)

//(Use this is you don't go the data contact and model annotation route)
config.Formatters.XmlFormatter.UseXmlSerializer = true;

Result

Either (With annotation and data contact):

<Foo xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"><Bar>Test</Bar></Foo>

Or (with XML serialiser route):

<Foo xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"><Bar>Test</Bar></Foo>

Answer 4

Maybe you could try with this:

Replace default XmlFormatter with your own:

GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Add(new CustomXmlFormatter());
GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Remove(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.XmlFormatter);

And impement it using XmlSerializer, with specifying empty namespace during serialization, like this:

public CustomXmlFormatter()
{
    SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/xml"));
    SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new MediaTypeHeaderValue("text/xml"));
    Encoding = new UTF8Encoding(false, true);
}

protected override bool CanReadType(Type type)
{
    if (type == (Type)null)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("type");

    if (type == typeof(IKeyValueModel))
        return false;

    return true;
}

protected override bool CanWriteType(Type type)
{
    return true;
}

protected override Task OnReadFromStreamAsync(Type type, Stream stream, HttpContentHeaders contentHeaders, FormatterContext formatterContext)
{
    return Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
            {
                using (var streamReader = new StreamReader(stream, Encoding))
                {
                    var serializer = new XmlSerializer(type);
                    return serializer.Deserialize(streamReader);
                }
            });
}

protected override Task OnWriteToStreamAsync(Type type, object value, Stream stream, HttpContentHeaders contentHeaders, FormatterContext formatterContext, System.Net.TransportContext transportContext)
{
    var serializer = new XmlSerializer(type);
    return Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
            {
                using (var streamWriter = new StreamWriter(stream, Encoding))
                {
                    XmlSerializerNamespaces ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
                    ns.Add("", "");
                    serializer.Serialize(streamWriter, value, ns);
                }
            });
    }
}

Custom XML serializer was stolen from here, and as such is untested.

This should serialize objects w/o writing the namespace. I'm not sure if it will work OOTB for deserialization, you'd may have to experiment with XmlSerializer.Deserialize() overload that provides events and handle UnknownElement or UnknownNode event.