Hey Dominic,
There is a feature in the .NET XML Serialization engine that allows you to
optionally serialize value types, in other words, types that cannot take the
value null. Such types include bool, int, float, and DateTime, to name just
a few.
For the doc on this, see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en...ClassTopic.asp
Here is a prior thread on the issue (May 2004)
http://tinyurl.com/4lge9
And here is an example illustrating the point for you
http://www.winisp.net/cheeso/srcview...ateOptional.cs
-D
"Dominic Messenger" <dmessenger@verdantsys.com> wrote in message
news:9d6bd82b.0407210845.228af00a@posting.google.c om...[color=blue]
> I have several elements that have optional child elements and
> attributes that are xs:dates.
> I have been using System.DateTime and the XmlAttribute/XmlElement
> attributes, but these will never work as System.DateTime can never be
> null.
>
> So
> public class MyClass
> {
> [XmlAttribute("a")] public string a;
> [XmlElement(ElementName="b", DataType="date")] public DateTime b;
> }
>
> will return
> <MyClass>
> <b>0001-01-01</b>
> </MyClass>
>
> when I want an empty element.
> I have tried my own class (Date) that exposes an XmlText attribute:
>
> public class Date
> {
> private string dt;
> public Date() { }
> [XmlText()]
> public string Value { get { return dt;} set { dt=value;}}
> }
>
> and changed my class to:
>
> public class MyClass
> {
> [XmlAttribute("a")] public string a;
> [XmlElement(ElementName="b")] public Date b;
> }
>
> ...but the serializer then throws an exception :
>
> "Cannot serialize member 'b'. XmlAttribute/XmlText cannot be used to
> encode complex types."
>
> How do I achieve an optional xs:date using XmlSerializer ?[/color]
