C# - XML serialization of derived classes

Question

I\'m trying to serialize a List of multiple elements (Suppliers, Customers, Products, etc), all deriving from the same class (MasterElement)

public class XML         


        

Answer 1

You can use XmlArrayItem to get around this:

public class XMLFile
{
    [XmlArray("MasterFiles")]
    [XmlArrayItem("Supplier", typeof(Supplier))]
    [XmlArrayItem("Customer", typeof(Customer))]
    public List<MasterElement> MasterFiles;
}

From the linked MSDN:

The XmlArrayItemAttribute supports polymorphism--in other words, it allows the XmlSerializer to add derived objects to an array.