Deserialize XML to List<>

Question

Is it possible to convert the following XML to List?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<DATA>
    <SIGNATURES>
        <SIGNATURE>
            <UTILISATEUR>John Doe</UTILISATEUR>
            <ACTEUR>Emetteur</ACTEUR>
            <DATE>20160429</DATE>
        </SIGNATURE>
        <SIGNATURE>
            <UTILISATEUR>Philippe Martin</UTILISATEUR>
            <ACTEUR>Responsable Qualité Projet</ACTEUR>
            <DATE>20160503</DATE>
        </SIGNATURE>
    </SIGNATURES>
</DATA>

I am looking for the following result:

But the XML is an example, I do not know the structure in advance so I can not create a class that would have the same structure ... I'm looking for a generic solution.

Thanks.

edit:

I wanted to describe a simple case that I would have adapted but in fact, currently I do not use this XML format. He is like this:

<DATA>
    <ELEMENTS Cle="NAME_1">
        <ELEMENT>
          <ELEMENT Cle="TAG_1" Valeur="John Doe"></ELEMENT>
          <ELEMENT Cle="TAG_2" Valeur="6 rue du Marché"></ELEMENT>
          <ELEMENT Cle="TAG_3" Valeur="Responsable marketing"></ELEMENT>
          <ELEMENT Cle="TAG_N" Valeur="..."></ELEMENT>
        </ELEMENT>
        <ELEMENT>...</ELEMENT>
    </ELEMENTS>
    <ELEMENTS Cle="NAME_N">...</ELEMENTS>
</DATA>

it "respects" a format but the content is never the same. And I extract the data into some dictionary:

public class Element
{
    public string Valeur { get; set; }
    public Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, List<Element>>>    taElements  { get; set; }

    public Element()
    {
        taElements  = new Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, List<Element>>>();
    }

    public void SetXML(string xml)
    {
        var document = XDocument.Parse(xml);
        var root = document.Root;

        foreach (var elements in root.Elements("ELEMENTS"))
        {
            var _taElement = new Dictionary<string, List<Element>>();

            foreach (var element in elements.Descendants("ELEMENT"))
            {
                if (element.Attribute("Cle") == null) { continue; }

                if (!_taElement.ContainsKey(element.Attribute("Cle").Value)) { _taElement.Add(element.Attribute("Cle").Value, new List<Element>()); }

                var elem = new Element();

                if (element.Attribute("Valeur") != null) { elem.Valeur = element.Attribute("Valeur").Value; }

                _taElement[element.Attribute("Cle").Value].Add(elem);

                if (!taElements.ContainsKey(elements.Attribute("Cle").Value)) { taElements.Add(elements.Attribute("Cle").Value, new Dictionary<string, List<Element>>()); }

                taElements[elements.Attribute("Cle").Value] = _taElement;
            }
        }
    }
}

But impossible to do Binding of the dictionary in an ItemsControl (which is my final goal).

Answer 1

You can create a List<Dictionary<string,string>> that will handle most any XML using LINQ to XML. You can extract the name of the element.

var xd = XDocument.Parse(doc);
var elementName = xd.FirstChild().Name.ToString().TrimEnd('S');
var ans = xd.Descendants(elementName).Select(d => d.Descendants().ToDictionary(dd => dd.Name.ToString(), dd => dd.Value)).ToList();

If you need to bind the ans to a DataGridView, then you can use a DataTable.

Using an extension method, you can convert the List<Dictionary> to a DataTable:

public static DataTable ToDataTable(this IEnumerable<IDictionary<string, string>> rows) {
    var dt = new DataTable();
    if (rows.Any()) {
        foreach (var kv in rows.First())
            dt.Columns.Add(kv.Key, typeof(String));

        foreach (var r in rows)
            dt.Rows.Add(r.Values.ToArray());
    }
    return dt;
}

Now you can create a DataTable for a DataSource:

var dt = ans.ToDataTable();

Answer 2

Take a look at the XMLSerializer/Deserialize for documentation. It will serialize a class out to XML, or read an XML stream into a class. XML Serialization

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        DATA data = new DATA();
        data.SIGNATURES = new List<SIGNATURE>();
        data.SIGNATURES.Add(new SIGNATURE() { ACTEUR = "", DATE= "", UTILISATEUR= "" });
        data.SIGNATURES.Add(new SIGNATURE() { ACTEUR = "", DATE = "", UTILISATEUR = "" });

        XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(DATA));
        using (TextWriter writer = new StreamWriter(@"Xml.xml"))
        {
            serializer.Serialize(writer, data);
        }

        XmlSerializer deserializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(DATA));
        TextReader reader = new StreamReader(@"myXml.xml");
        object obj = deserializer.Deserialize(reader);
        DATA XmlData = (DATA)obj;
        reader.Close();
    }


  public class SIGNATURE
    {
        public string UTILISATEUR { get; set; }
        public string ACTEUR { get; set; }
        public string DATE { get; set; }
    }

    public class DATA
    {
        public List<SIGNATURE> SIGNATURES { get; set; }
    }