Ignore a property when serializing to XML

Question

I have a base class that has MANY big classes inside it.

For example, Let's say Person class. Inside it, there is a Payment Class, inside there is a CreditCard class, and so on...

I am trying to serialize Person class, and I would like to exclude certain classes inside it.

In this example, I am trying to serialize Person class and ignore the ENTIRE payment class. This is what I did so far, but it's not working.

Can you guys help me figure out how I can achieve this? Thanks

        XmlAttributes att = new XmlAttributes { XmlIgnore = true };
        XmlAttributeOverrides xOver = new XmlAttributeOverrides();
        xOver.Add(typeof(Payment), "Payment", att);
        SerializeContractsRequest(items, xOver);

public static string Serialize<T>(T clrObject, XmlAttributeOverrides xmlOverrides) where T : class, new()
{
    XmlSerializer xs = xmlOverrides == null ? new XmlSerializer(typeof(T)) : new XmlSerializer(typeof(T), xmlOverrides);
    string xml = string.Empty;

    //A string builder that will hold the converted business object as an xml string
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

    //The stream that will write the serialized xml to the stringbuilder object
    XmlWriterSettings settings = new XmlWriterSettings();
    settings.Encoding = Encoding.UTF8;

    XmlWriter writer = XmlWriter.Create(sb, settings);

    xs.Serialize(writer, clrObject);

    xml = sb.ToString();

    return xml;
}

Also, I am not allowed to touch the Payment Class XML Attribute. For example, I am not allowed to add [XmlIgnore] on Payment Class.

I only need this on one method so that's where I would like to apply the override. However, just for your reference, this is what Payment class has:

    [System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()]
    [System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("System.Runtime.Serialization", "4.0.0.0")]
    [System.Runtime.Serialization.DataContractAttribute(Name="Payment", Namespace="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/ServicesLayer")]
    [System.SerializableAttribute()]
public partial class Payment
{

}

Answer 1

When you specify an override, you pass-in the type that contains the property :

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Windows;
using System.Xml.Serialization;

namespace WpfApplication10
{
    public partial class MainWindow
    {
        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            Loaded += MainWindow_Loaded;
        }

        private void MainWindow_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            var person = new Person
            {
                Payment = new Payment { Amount = 100 },
                Payments = new List<Payment>
                {
                    new Payment { Amount = 200 }, 
                    new Payment { Amount = 400 }
                }
            };

            var attributes = new XmlAttributes { XmlIgnore = true };

            var overrides = new XmlAttributeOverrides();
            overrides.Add(typeof(Person), "Payment", attributes);
            overrides.Add(typeof(Person), "Payments", attributes);

            var serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(Person), overrides);
            using (var stringWriter = new StringWriter())
            {
                serializer.Serialize(stringWriter, person);
                string s = stringWriter.ToString();
            }
        }
    }

    public class Person
    {
        public List<Payment> Payments { get; set; }
        public Payment Payment { get; set; }
        public int SomethingElse { get; set; }
    }

    public class Payment
    {
        public decimal Amount { get; set; }
    }
}

Result :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
<Person xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <SomethingElse>0</SomethingElse>
</Person>