Clean XML serializing a hierarchical, recursive data structure

Question

I have this class: ``` [XmlRoot("menuItem")] public class MenuItem { [XmlAttribute("text")] public string Text { get; set; } [XmlAttribute("isLink")] public bool IsLink { get; set; } [XmlAttribute("url")] public string Url { get; set; } [XmlArray("items", IsNullable = true)] public List Items { get; set; } } ``` Which defines a menu hierarchy. Now, on serializing this class, the output XML for a 3-level menu is: ```

Accepted Answer

Add `XmlArrayItemAttribute` and take away the IsNullable:

```
[XmlArray("items"), XmlArrayItem("menuItem")]
public List<MenuItem> Items { get; set; }
```

To get rid of the extra namespaces, you need to use `XmlSerializerNamespaces`:

```
var ns = new XmlSerializerNamespaces();
ns.Add("","");
var ser = new XmlSerializer(typeof (MenuItem));
ser.Serialize(Console.Out, obj, ns);
```

Clean XML serializing a hierarchical, recursive data structure

Solution

Problem