Serializing a Nullable in to XML

by

If you just want it to work, then perhaps:

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
public class Account
{
    // your main property; TODO: your version
    [XmlIgnore]
    public Nullable<DateTime> AccountExpirationDate {get;set;}

    // this is a shim property that we use to provide the serialization
    [XmlAttribute("AccountExpirationDate")]
    [Browsable(false), EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never)]
    public DateTime AccountExpirationDateSerialized
    {
        get {return AccountExpirationDate.Value;}
        set {AccountExpirationDate = value;}
    }

    // and here we turn serialization of the value on/off per the value
    [Browsable(false), EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never)]
    public bool ShouldSerializeAccountExpirationDateSerialized()
    {
        return AccountExpirationDate.HasValue;
    }

    // test it...
    static void Main()
    {
        var ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Account));
        var obj1 = new Account { AccountExpirationDate = DateTime.Today };
        ser.Serialize(Console.Out, obj1);
        Console.WriteLine();
        var obj2 = new Account { AccountExpirationDate = null};
        ser.Serialize(Console.Out, obj2);
    }
}

This will only include the attribute when there is a non-null value.

More Related Contents:

  1. Proper way to implement IXmlSerializable?
  2. Serialize an object to XML
  3. Conditional operator assignment with Nullable types?
  4. How do you serialize a string as CDATA using XmlSerializer?
  5. XML Serialization and namespace prefixes
  6. Serialize an object to string
  7. Can I make XmlSerializer ignore the namespace on deserialization?
  8. Deserializing into a List without a container element in XML
  9. What are lifted operators?
  10. How to set enum to null
  11. How do you find out when you’ve been loaded via XML Serialization?
  12. Type of conditional expression cannot be determined because there is no implicit conversion between ‘int’ and
  13. How to decode string to XML string in C#
  14. Ternary operator VB vs C#: why resolves Nothing to zero? [duplicate]
  15. Deciding on when to use XmlDocument vs XmlReader
  16. In C# why can’t a conditional operator implicitly cast to a nullable type
  17. What are the differences between the XmlSerializer and BinaryFormatter
  18. Suppress Null Value Types from Being Emitted by XmlSerializer
  19. nullable object must have a value
  20. How to add attributes for C# XML Serialization
  21. How is the boxing/unboxing behavior of Nullable possible?
  22. What is MyAssembly.XmlSerializers.dll generated for?
  23. Boxing / Unboxing Nullable Types – Why this implementation?
  24. Cannot serialize member…. because it is an interface
  25. How to get nullable DateTime out of the database
  26. Correct way to check if a type is Nullable [duplicate]
  27. What does exclamation mark mean before invoking a method in C# 8.0? [duplicate]
  28. What’s the difference between ‘int?’ and ‘int’ in C#?
  29. How to deserialize only part of an XML document in C#
  30. XmlSerializer property converter

Leave a Comment