[2005] XML deserialization

[mpdeglau]

I'm using this code to try and load an xmlDocument into a serializable object

Public Shared Function LoadObjectFromXmlDoc(ByVal x As System.Xml.XmlDocument, ByVal objType As Type) As Object
        Try
            Dim tmpObj As Object
            Dim oXS As System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer = New System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(objType)
            Dim oStm As New System.IO.MemoryStream()
 
            x.Save(oStm)
            tmpObj = oXS.Deserialize(oStm)
            oStm.Close()
            Return tmpObj
        Catch ex As Exception
            Return Nothing
        End Try
    End Function

But I keep getting an error saying "There is an error in XML document (0, 0).". The inner exception is "{"Root element is missing."}". But that's not true. It is a valid xml document. I serialize a class to create this document. This is a sample of what the xml file looks like when I save it to a file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16" ?> 
- <ArrayOfSearchResults xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
- <SearchResults>
  <Show>Dream Team</Show> 
  <Url>http://www.tv.com/dream-team/show/5430/summary.html?full_summary=1&tag=showspace_links;full_summary</Url> 
  <Number>0</Number> 
  </SearchResults>
- <SearchResults>
  <Show>Time Team</Show> 
  <Url>http://www.tv.com/time-team/show/21725/summary.html?full_summary=1&tag=showspace_links;full_summary</Url> 
  <Number>0</Number> 
  </SearchResults>
</ArrayOfSearchResults>

[Tom Sawyer]

I get the same error when I deserialize. The problem is with the encoding="utf-16". I don't know why this is a problem or what causes it, but for some reason, my computer can't read them. If you change it to utf-8, then it will work.

When you serialize it into an XML string, just do a replace for the utf-16 to utf-8 and everything will work fine:

sXML = SerializeFunction(<args>);
sXML = sXML.Replace("utf-16", "utf-8")

I realize that this is a hack and there's probably some other way to get your machine to be able to read XML files with the utf-16 encoding or to get your serializtion to use the utf-8 encoding, but I wasn't able to find them and this way works.

[mpdeglau]

That didn't fix it. I'm getting the same error. Any other ideas?

[mpdeglau]

I figured out what the issue was. The memory stream was at the last last byte when I called deserialize. So if I set the position to 0, then it works. I did also have to change the encoding to utf-8, like Tom said. does anyone know why that is? Also when serializing an object is there a way to control that, because as Tom said the way he suggested is a hack.