Omitting all xsi and xsd namespaces when serializing an object in NET

Question

The code looks like this    StringBuilder builder   new StringBuilder    XmlWriterSettings settings   new XmlWriterSettings    settings OmitXmlDeclaration   true  using  XmlWriter xmlWriter   XmlWriter Create builder  settings         XmlSerializer s   new XmlSerializer objectToSerialize GetType         s Serialize xmlWriter  objectToSerialize       The resulting serialized document includes namespaces  like so     lt message xmlns xsi   http   www w3 org 2001 XMLSchema-instance        xmlns xsd   http   www w3 org 2001 XMLSchema        xmlns  urn something  gt        lt  message gt    To remove the xsi and xsd namespaces  I can follow the answer from How to serialize an object to XML without getting xmlns              I want my message tag as  lt message gt   without any namespace attributes    How can I do this

User · Accepted Answer

XmlSerializer s   new XmlSerializer objectToSerialize GetType     XmlSerializerNamespaces ns   new XmlSerializerNamespaces    ns Add         s Serialize xmlWriter  objectToSerialize  ns

User · Answer

After reading Microsoft s documentation and several solutions online  I have discovered the solution to this problem  It works with both the built-in XmlSerializer and custom XML serialization via IXmlSerialiazble   To wit  I ll use the same MyTypeWithNamespaces XML sample that s been used in the answers to this question so far    XmlRoot  MyTypeWithNamespaces   Namespace  urn Abracadabra   IsNullable false   public class MyTypeWithNamespaces          As noted below  per Microsoft s documentation  if the class exposes a public        member of type XmlSerializerNamespaces decorated with the         XmlNamespacesDeclarationAttribute  then the XmlSerializer will utilize those        namespaces during serialization      public MyTypeWithNamespaces                  this  namespaces   new XmlSerializerNamespaces new XmlQualifiedName                    Don t do this   Microsoft s documentation explicitly says it s not supported                 It doesn t throw any exceptions  but in my testing  it didn t always work                  new XmlQualifiedName string Empty  string Empty       And don t do this                 new XmlQualifiedName                         DO THIS              new XmlQualifiedName string Empty   urn Abracadabra      Default Namespace                Add any other namespaces  with prefixes  here                            If you have other constructors  make sure to call the default constructor      public MyTypeWithNamespaces string label  int epoch    this                  this  label   label          this  epoch   epoch                An element with a declared namespace different than the namespace        of the enclosing type       XmlElement Namespace  urn Whoohoo        public string Label               get   return this  label            set   this  label   value              private string  label          An element whose tag will be the same name as the property name         Also  this element will inherit the namespace of the enclosing type      public int Epoch               get   return this  epoch            set   this  epoch   value              private int  epoch          Per Microsoft s documentation  you can add some public member that        returns a XmlSerializerNamespaces object  They use a public field         but that s sloppy  So I ll use a private backed-field with a public        getter property  Also  per the documentation  for this to work with        the XmlSerializer  decorate it with the XmlNamespaceDeclarations        attribute       XmlNamespaceDeclarations      public XmlSerializerNamespaces Namespaces               get   return this  namespaces              private XmlSerializerNamespaces  namespaces      That s all to this class  Now  some objected to having an XmlSerializerNamespaces object somewhere within their classes  but as you can see  I neatly tucked it away in the default constructor and exposed a public property to return the namespaces   Now  when it comes time to serialize the class  you would use the following code   MyTypeWithNamespaces myType   new MyTypeWithNamespaces  myLabel   42               OK  I just figured I could do this to make the code shorter  so I commented out the    below and replaced it with what follows      You have to use this constructor in order for the root element to have the right namespaces     If you need to do custom serialization of inner objects  you can use a shortened constructor  XmlSerializer xs   new XmlSerializer typeof MyTypeWithNamespaces   new XmlAttributeOverrides        new Type      new XmlRootAttribute  MyTypeWithNamespaces     urn Abracadabra             XmlSerializer xs   new XmlSerializer typeof MyTypeWithNamespaces       new XmlRootAttribute  MyTypeWithNamespaces     Namespace  urn Abracadabra          I ll use a MemoryStream as my backing store  MemoryStream ms   new MemoryStream        This is extra  If you want to change the settings for the XmlSerializer  you have to create    a separate XmlWriterSettings object and use the XmlTextWriter Create      factory method     So  in this case  I want to omit the XML declaration  XmlWriterSettings xws   new XmlWriterSettings    xws OmitXmlDeclaration   true  xws Encoding   Encoding UTF8     This is probably the default    You could use the XmlWriterSetting to set indenting and new line options  but the    XmlTextWriter class has a much easier method to accomplish that      The factory method returns a XmlWriter  not a XmlTextWriter  so cast it  XmlTextWriter xtw    XmlTextWriter XmlTextWriter Create ms  xws      Then we can set our indenting options  this is  of course  optional   xtw Formatting   Formatting Indented      Now serialize our object  xs Serialize xtw  myType  myType Namespaces     Once you have done this  you should get the following output    lt MyTypeWithNamespaces gt       lt Label xmlns  urn Whoohoo  gt myLabel lt  Label gt       lt Epoch gt 42 lt  Epoch gt   lt  MyTypeWithNamespaces gt    I have successfully used this method in a recent project with a deep hierachy of classes that are serialized to XML for web service calls  Microsoft s documentation is not very clear about what to do with the publicly accesible XmlSerializerNamespaces member once you ve created it  and so many think it s useless  But by following their documentation and using it in the manner shown above  you can customize how the XmlSerializer generates XML for your classes without resorting to unsupported behavior or  rolling your own  serialization by implementing IXmlSerializable   It is my hope that this answer will put to rest  once and for all  how to get rid of the standard xsi and xsd namespaces generated by the XmlSerializer   UPDATE  I just want to make sure I answered the OP s question about removing all namespaces  My code above will work for this  let me show you how  Now  in the example above  you really can t get rid of all namespaces  because there are two namespaces in use   Somewhere in your XML document  you re going to need to have something like xmlns  urn Abracadabra  xmlns w  urn Whoohoo  If the class in the example is part of a larger document  then somewhere above a namespace must be declared for either one of  or both  Abracadbra and Whoohoo  If not  then the element in one or both of the namespaces must be decorated with a prefix of some sort  you can t have two default namespaces  right    So  for this example  Abracadabra is the defalt namespace  I could inside my MyTypeWithNamespaces class add a namespace prefix for the Whoohoo namespace like so   public MyTypeWithNamespaces       this  namespaces   new XmlSerializerNamespaces new XmlQualifiedName             new XmlQualifiedName string Empty   urn Abracadabra       Default Namespace         new XmlQualifiedName  w    urn Whoohoo               Now  in my class definition  I indicated that the  lt Label  gt  element is in the namespace  urn Whoohoo   so I don t need to do anything further  When I now serialize the class using my above serialization code unchanged  this is the output    lt MyTypeWithNamespaces xmlns w  urn Whoohoo  gt       lt w Label gt myLabel lt  w Label gt       lt Epoch gt 42 lt  Epoch gt   lt  MyTypeWithNamespaces gt    Because  lt Label gt  is in a different namespace from the rest of the document  it must  in someway  be  decorated  with a namespace  Notice that there are still no xsi and xsd namespaces

User · Answer

This is the 2nd of two answers     If you want to just strip all namespaces arbitrarily from a document during serialization  you can do this by implementing your own XmlWriter    The easiest way is to derive from XmlTextWriter and override the StartElement method that emits namespaces   The StartElement method is invoked by the XmlSerializer when emitting any elements  including the root   By overriding the namespace for each element  and replacing it with the empty string  you ve stripped the namespaces from the output    public class NoNamespaceXmlWriter   XmlTextWriter         Provide as many contructors as you need     public NoNamespaceXmlWriter System IO TextWriter output            base output    Formatting  System Xml Formatting Indented        public override void WriteStartDocument             public override void WriteStartElement string prefix  string localName  string ns                base WriteStartElement     localName                 Suppose this is the type       explicitly specify a namespace for this type     to be used during XML serialization   XmlRoot Namespace  urn Abracadabra    public class MyTypeWithNamespaces          private fields backing the properties     private int  Epoch      private string  Label          explicitly define a distinct namespace for this element      XmlElement Namespace  urn Whoohoo        public string Label               set     Label  value             get   return  Label                   this property will be implicitly serialized to XML using the        member name for the element name  and inheriting the namespace from        the type      public int Epoch               set     Epoch  value             get   return  Epoch               Here s how you would use such a thing during serialization            var o2  new MyTypeWithNamespaces     intializers              var builder   new System Text StringBuilder            using   XmlWriter writer   new NoNamespaceXmlWriter new System IO StringWriter builder                          s2 Serialize writer  o2  ns2                                 Console WriteLine   0   builder ToString       The XmlTextWriter is sort of broken  though   According to the reference doc  when it writes it does not check for the following          Invalid characters in attribute and element names    Unicode characters that do not fit the specified encoding  If the Unicode   characters do not fit the specified   encoding  the XmlTextWriter does not   escape the Unicode characters into   character entities    Duplicate attributes    Characters in the DOCTYPE public   identifier or system identifier       These problems with XmlTextWriter have been around since v1 1 of the  NET Framework  and they will remain  for backward compatibility   If you have no concerns about those problems  then by all means use the XmlTextWriter   But most people would like a bit more reliability    To get that  while still suppressing namespaces during serialization  instead of deriving from XmlTextWriter  define a concrete implementation of the abstract XmlWriter and its 24 methods     An example is here   public class XmlWriterWrapper   XmlWriter       protected XmlWriter writer       public XmlWriterWrapper XmlWriter baseWriter                this Writer   baseWriter             public override void Close                 this writer Close               protected override void Dispose bool disposing                  IDisposable  this writer  Dispose               public override void Flush                 this writer Flush               public override string LookupPrefix string ns                return this writer LookupPrefix ns              public override void WriteBase64 byte   buffer  int index  int count                this writer WriteBase64 buffer  index  count              public override void WriteCData string text                this writer WriteCData text              public override void WriteCharEntity char ch                this writer WriteCharEntity ch              public override void WriteChars char   buffer  int index  int count                this writer WriteChars buffer  index  count              public override void WriteComment string text                this writer WriteComment text              public override void WriteDocType string name  string pubid  string sysid  string subset                this writer WriteDocType name  pubid  sysid  subset              public override void WriteEndAttribute                 this writer WriteEndAttribute               public override void WriteEndDocument                 this writer WriteEndDocument               public override void WriteEndElement                 this writer WriteEndElement               public override void WriteEntityRef string name                this writer WriteEntityRef name              public override void WriteFullEndElement                 this writer WriteFullEndElement               public override void WriteProcessingInstruction string name  string text                this writer WriteProcessingInstruction name  text              public override void WriteRaw string data                this writer WriteRaw data              public override void WriteRaw char   buffer  int index  int count                this writer WriteRaw buffer  index  count              public override void WriteStartAttribute string prefix  string localName  string ns                this writer WriteStartAttribute prefix  localName  ns              public override void WriteStartDocument                 this writer WriteStartDocument               public override void WriteStartDocument bool standalone                this writer WriteStartDocument standalone              public override void WriteStartElement string prefix  string localName  string ns                this writer WriteStartElement prefix  localName  ns              public override void WriteString string text                this writer WriteString text              public override void WriteSurrogateCharEntity char lowChar  char highChar                this writer WriteSurrogateCharEntity lowChar  highChar              public override void WriteValue bool value                this writer WriteValue value              public override void WriteValue DateTime value                this writer WriteValue value              public override void WriteValue decimal value                this writer WriteValue value              public override void WriteValue double value                this writer WriteValue value              public override void WriteValue int value                this writer WriteValue value              public override void WriteValue long value                this writer WriteValue value              public override void WriteValue object value                this writer WriteValue value              public override void WriteValue float value                this writer WriteValue value              public override void WriteValue string value                this writer WriteValue value              public override void WriteWhitespace string ws                this writer WriteWhitespace ws               public override XmlWriterSettings Settings               get                       return this writer Settings                       protected XmlWriter Writer               get                       return this writer                    set                       this writer   value                       public override System Xml WriteState WriteState               get                       return this writer WriteState                       public override string XmlLang               get                       return this writer XmlLang                       public override System Xml XmlSpace XmlSpace               get                       return this writer XmlSpace                              Then  provide a derived class that overrides the StartElement method  as before    public class NamespaceSupressingXmlWriter   XmlWriterWrapper         Provide as many contructors as you need     public NamespaceSupressingXmlWriter System IO TextWriter output            base XmlWriter Create output            public NamespaceSupressingXmlWriter XmlWriter output            base XmlWriter Create output            public override void WriteStartElement string prefix  string localName  string ns                base WriteStartElement     localName                 And then use this writer like so            var o2  new MyTypeWithNamespaces     intializers              var builder   new System Text StringBuilder            var settings   new XmlWriterSettings   OmitXmlDeclaration   true  Indent  true            using   XmlWriter innerWriter   XmlWriter Create builder  settings               using   XmlWriter writer   new NamespaceSupressingXmlWriter innerWriter                                 s2 Serialize writer  o2  ns2                                     Console WriteLine   0   builder ToString       Credit for this to Oleg Tkachenko

User · Answer

This is the first of my two answers to the question    If you want fine control over the namespaces - for example if you want to omit some of them but not others  or if you want to replace one namespace with another  you can do this using XmlAttributeOverrides   Suppose you have this type definition       explicitly specify a namespace for this type     to be used during XML serialization   XmlRoot Namespace  urn Abracadabra    public class MyTypeWithNamespaces          private fields backing the properties     private int  Epoch      private string  Label          explicitly define a distinct namespace for this element      XmlElement Namespace  urn Whoohoo        public string Label               set     Label  value             get   return  Label                   this property will be implicitly serialized to XML using the        member name for the element name  and inheriting the namespace from        the type      public int Epoch               set     Epoch  value             get   return  Epoch               And this serialization pseudo-code           var o2  new MyTypeWithNamespaces       initializers              ns Add       urn Abracadabra             XmlSerializer s2   new XmlSerializer typeof MyTypeWithNamespaces            s2 Serialize System Console Out  o2  ns     You would get something like this XML     lt MyTypeWithNamespaces xmlns  urn Abracadabra  gt     lt Label xmlns  urn Whoohoo  gt Cimsswybclaeqjh lt  Label gt     lt Epoch gt 97 lt  Epoch gt   lt  MyTypeWithNamespaces gt    Notice that there is a default namespace on the root element  and there is also a distinct namespace on the  Label  element  These namespaces were dictated by the attributes decorating the type  in the code above    The Xml Serialization framework in  NET includes the possibility to explicitly override the attributes that decorate the actual code  You do this with the XmlAttributesOverrides class and friends   Suppose I have the same type  and I serialize it this way               instantiate the container for all attribute overrides         XmlAttributeOverrides xOver   new XmlAttributeOverrides                define a set of XML attributes to apply to the root element         XmlAttributes xAttrs1   new XmlAttributes                define an XmlRoot element  as if  XmlRoot  had decorated the type             The namespace in the attribute override is the empty string           XmlRootAttribute xRoot   new XmlRootAttribute     Namespace                    add that XmlRoot element to the container of attributes         xAttrs1 XmlRoot  xRoot              add that bunch of attributes to the container holding all overrides         xOver Add typeof MyTypeWithNamespaces   xAttrs1               create another set of XML Attributes         XmlAttributes xAttrs2   new XmlAttributes                define an XmlElement attribute  for a type of  String   with no namespace         var xElt   new XmlElementAttribute typeof String     Namespace                    add that XmlElement attribute to the 2nd bunch of attributes         xAttrs2 XmlElements Add xElt               add that bunch of attributes to the container for the type  and            specifically apply that bunch to the  Label  property on the type          xOver Add typeof MyTypeWithNamespaces    Label   xAttrs2               instantiate a serializer with the overrides          XmlSerializer s3   new XmlSerializer typeof MyTypeWithNamespaces   xOver               serialize         s3 Serialize System Console Out  o2  ns2     The result looks like this     lt MyTypeWithNamespaces gt     lt Label gt Cimsswybclaeqjh lt  Label gt     lt Epoch gt 97 lt  Epoch gt   lt  MyTypeWithNamespaces gt    You have stripped the namespaces    A logical question is  can you strip all namespaces from arbitrary types during serialization  without going through the explicit overrides    The answer is YES  and how to do it is in my next response

User · Answer

XmlSerializer sr   new XmlSerializer objectToSerialize GetType     TextWriter xmlWriter   new StreamWriter filename   XmlSerializerNamespaces namespaces   new XmlSerializerNamespaces    namespaces Add string Empty  string Empty   sr Serialize xmlWriter  objectToSerialize  namespaces

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